Bitcoin is trading near $63,500, a price level that Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards identifies as the production cost where miners break even on average. The cryptocurrency hit a 2026 low of $59,100 last Friday, sending its market cap below $1.2 trillion for the first time since Oct. 2024. Edwards wrote in an X post that bitcoin is "trading back at its Production cost" and placed the network's electrical cost floor at $50,000. Miner profitability has dropped to a 14-month low as the current price band tests the all-in expense of mining a single coin, including hardware, electricity and other overheads.
Capriole Founder Identifies $63,500 as Bitcoin Production Cost
Charles Edwards, founder of Capriole Investments, stated in an X post that bitcoin is "trading back at its Production cost" and that "miners are now just breaking even on average." He added that the best long-term opportunities have historically sat between the current zone and the network's electrical cost, which he placed at $50,000. Production cost is the all-in expense of mining a single coin, including hardware, electricity and other overheads. Edwards argues that over the past five years, electrical cost in particular has acted as a hard floor for bitcoin's traded price, an observation he ties to Satoshi Nakamoto's original theory that price gravitates toward the cost of production.
Bitcoin Falls to $59,100 as Market Cap Drops Below $1.2 Trillion
Bitcoin slipped to a 2026 low of $59,100 on Friday as more than 351,000 traders were liquidated across crypto markets in a single 24-hour window. The drop widened bitcoin's year-to-date losses to roughly 30% and briefly pushed its market capitalization below $1.2 trillion, a level last seen in October 2024. The asset has since clawed back toward $64,000. U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) bled an estimated $2.8 billion to $3.5 billion over a 10-to-11-session stretch in late May and early June, with one week alone logging around $3.4 billion in redemptions, the largest single-week outflow since the funds launched in early 2024. Strategy completed its first bitcoin sale since 2022, then added 1,550 BTC to its holdings yesterday.
Mining Profitability Reaches 14-Month Low
Mining profitability has slumped to a 14-month low, with several rigs now flirting with shutdown prices, the point at which keeping a machine powered on costs more than the bitcoin it earns. The 2024 halving cut block rewards to 3.125 BTC per block while network difficulty kept climbing, squeezing margins from both directions. When the market price falls to meet the production cost figure, the least efficient operations start running in the red and face a choice of either absorbing losses or switching off their machines. A growing share of public miners has pivoted toward artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing, leasing data-center capacity to AI tenants whose revenue is far steadier than block rewards.
Historical Context Shows Production Cost as Long-Term Value Marker
In the 2019 and 2022 bear markets, bitcoin traded below production cost before gradually converging back toward it. Research has flagged how rising energy and hardware expenses have pushed all-in mining costs to record highs, narrowing the cushion miners have when prices fall. A few years ago, the gap ran the other way, with production cost sitting well above spot value and forcing weaker operators to sell reserves.
FAQ
What is Bitcoin's current production cost according to Capriole Investments?
Charles Edwards of Capriole Investments stated that bitcoin is trading at its production cost near $63,500, where miners are breaking even on average. He placed the network's electrical cost floor at $50,000.
How low did Bitcoin fall last Friday?
Bitcoin hit a 2026 low of $59,100 last Friday, sending its market cap below $1.2 trillion for the first time since October 2024. More than 351,000 traders were liquidated across crypto markets in a single 24-hour window during the selloff.
Why are Bitcoin miners facing operational pressure?
Mining profitability has dropped to a 14-month low as bitcoin's price tests production cost. The 2024 halving cut block rewards to 3.125 BTC per block while network difficulty kept climbing, squeezing margins and pushing several rigs toward shutdown prices where operating costs exceed mining revenue.
