What Is Hashprice? Mining's Most Useful Number
Short answer: Hashprice is the USD value one unit of hashrate earns per day at current coin price, difficulty and block reward. It is usually quoted per petahash per day and shows whether mining or a contract can pay.
If you spend any time around mining, you will meet the word hashprice. It is the single number that converts "how much does hashrate earn?" into a plain dollar figure, and it is the fastest way to tell whether a contract, a hosted miner or a pool is worth your money. This guide explains what it is, how it is built, and how to use it without being misled.
table of contents
What hashprice means
Hashprice is the expected revenue from one unit of hashrate over a set period, expressed in US dollars. For Bitcoin it is usually quoted as USD per petahash per second per day (USD/PH/day), because the network's total hashrate is measured in exahashes and petahashes; this site's live table quotes USD per TH/s per day so that coins on different algorithms stay comparable (one PH/s is a thousand TH/s). When we checked on 2026-10-02, the Bitcoin hashprice printed $40.17 per PH per day [1] - about four cents per TH per day.
The metric is a convenience wrapper, not a protocol value. Luxor coined the term in 2019, and it has since become the industry standard [4][7]. It rolls four moving parts into one number: the coin price, the network difficulty, the block subsidy and transaction fees [7]. Hashrate Index publishes the public index [1], and you can watch the raw inputs change on the mempool.space mining dashboard [6].
How it is calculated
The arithmetic is straightforward once you know the pieces.
- Block reward. Each Bitcoin block pays a fixed subsidy plus the fees of its transactions. The subsidy halves roughly every four years, so the same hashrate earns less coin over time [8].
- Network difficulty. This adjusts about every two weeks so that blocks keep arriving at roughly ten-minute intervals. More total hashrate means higher difficulty and a smaller share for you.
- Your share. Your hashrate divided by the network's total hashrate gives your expected fraction of blocks, and therefore of rewards.
Written as a formula for one petahash running for a day:
`` hashprice (USD/PH/day) = price × (subsidy + fees per block) × blocks per day (144) × (1e15 PH→H) / network hashrate (H/s) ``
With the live numbers from 2026-10-02 - BTC at roughly $84,400, subsidy 3.125 BTC, fees around 0.03 BTC per block, and network hashrate near 984 EH/s [1][6] - the sum lands at about $40 per PH per day, matching the published index [1]. Because all four inputs move, hashprice changes continuously: a rise in the coin price lifts it; a rise in difficulty or a halving pushes it down.
The unit choice trips people up. Index providers quote per petahash because institutional fleets are measured in EH/s, while retail contracts are sold per terahash - a factor of 1,000. If a sales page quotes "$40 per day" next to a 10 TH package, it has silently skipped three decimal places. Always convert both sides of a comparison to the same unit before subtracting anything.
Why hashprice is the right lens
Hashprice lets you compare things that otherwise speak different languages. A cloud mining contract quotes dollars per terahash, an ASIC host quotes cents per kilowatt-hour, and a hashrate marketplace quotes a price per petahash-day. Convert each to the same axis - net dollars per unit of hashrate per day - and the comparison becomes obvious.
It also exposes the risk that marketing hides. Hashprice tends to fall as an industry adds machines, which is precisely why a fixed hosting cost becomes more dangerous over a long term. A contract that looks break-even at today's hashprice may be deeply negative in a year if difficulty rises and the coin price does not. This is the core argument in is cloud mining profitable?, and the reason our mining calculator lets you apply a difficulty-growth scenario rather than a single flat number.
There is now a market answer to that volatility: miners can hedge future revenue with hashrate derivatives [3]. Treat that as a signal about the metric's nature - when professionals pay to insure against hashprice swings, a seller promising you fixed returns is selling something the market itself prices as risky.
What hashprice does not tell you
Hashprice answers one question - what a unit of hashrate earns - and it is worth being precise about the four things it leaves out.
- Your efficiency. Two miners with the same hashprice keep wildly different amounts, because revenue per joule depends on the machine. At the hashprice above, a fleet pulling 20 joules per terahash burns about 24 cents per TH per day on power at $0.05/kWh - roughly six times the revenue itself. A 10 J/TH fleet spends half that. The metric hides this difference by construction, and it is why older machines go offline first when hashprice drops.
- Pool fees and payout luck. Pools skim a fee (often around 1-2%), and small hashrates see real variance around the expected value - a small rig may run weeks between block-sized payouts. Hashprice is an expectation, not a schedule.
- Cost stability. Hosting contracts and maintenance fees are usually fixed in dollars while revenue floats. That asymmetry is the whole danger in is cloud mining profitable?.
- The coin, not the business. Hashprice says nothing about operator solvency, custody or fee changes - the risks in how to spot cloud mining scams.
How to use it in practice
Use hashprice as the first filter, then subtract costs.
- Find the current hashprice for the coin you are considering, from a live index [1] or your own calculation from public network data [6].
- Convert your offer to hashprice units. A contract selling 10 TH/s is 0.01 PH/s, so multiply the hashprice by 0.01 to get its gross daily revenue.
- Subtract the daily maintenance, hosting or power cost. What is left is the daily margin.
- Compare the total margin over the term with the price you paid. That is the break-even test.
- Repeat with hashprice falling by 30 to 50 percent to see how much room for error the deal has.
The same number works on the supply side. If you are considering hosting your own miner, the hashprice tells you the revenue ceiling; the power rate and fee determine what you keep. Braiins publishes profitability references that many operators use for the same purpose [7]. For the difference between renting capacity and simply buying the coin, see cloud mining vs buying the coin, and browse live offers under mining and hashrate markets.
The bottom line
Hashprice is revenue per unit of hashrate, not profit, and it drifts down as miners compete. Used honestly - with costs subtracted and difficulty modelled - it is the clearest number in mining and the quickest way to reject a bad offer. Used as a slogan, it flatters any seller. Check the live value, do the subtraction yourself, and judge the offer on the margin it leaves you.
FAQ
What is hashprice in one sentence?
It is the dollar value of the coin that one unit of hashrate earns per day, after accounting for the current coin price, network difficulty and block reward.
Is hashprice the same as mining profitability?
No. Hashprice is revenue, not profit. To get profit you subtract your costs - electricity, hosting or a maintenance fee. Two miners can share a hashprice and have completely different profits.
Who coined the term hashprice?
Luxor, the US-based Bitcoin mining pool and hashrate market maker, introduced the term in 2019. It has since become the industry's standard revenue yardstick, with Hashrate Index tracking it as a public index.
Why does hashprice fall over time?
More machines joining the network raise difficulty, so the same hashrate wins a smaller share of each block. Halvings cut the block reward every few years. Both push the revenue per unit of hashrate down unless the coin price rises faster.
How do I use hashprice to judge a cloud mining contract?
Compare it with the contract's daily cost per unit plus its maintenance fee. If the fee is close to the hashprice, the contract loses money even if the coin price holds. Model a falling hashprice as well.
Can I trade or hedge hashprice itself?
Yes. Hashrate derivatives exist for exactly that - Luxor runs a platform where miners hedge future hashprice revenue. The existence of a hedging market is itself a signal: professional miners treat hashprice as a volatile commodity, not a fixed income.
Where can I see live hashprice?
Our hashprice page tracks it from public network data, and Hashrate Index publishes a widely used index. The underlying inputs are visible on any public mining dashboard.
Ready to pick a provider? The comparison table has the live values, the finder narrows them down:
Sources
- Hashrate Index - Bitcoin hashprice index (data platform) - accessed 2026-10-02
- Hashrate Index - hashprice ticker and network stats - accessed 2026-10-02
- Luxor - hashrate derivatives and hedging platform - accessed 2026-10-02
- The Block - Bitcoin hashprice index (term coined by Luxor) - accessed 2026-10-02
- Luxor docs - Hashprice definition (2019 coinage, archived) - accessed 2026-10-02
- mempool.space - mining dashboard (difficulty, hashrate, fees) - accessed 2026-10-02
- Braiins - mining pool and profitability reference - accessed 2026-10-02
- Bitcoin Wiki - controlled supply and halvings - accessed 2026-10-02