Why Did My Mining Earnings Drop? (Difficulty vs Fees vs Hashprice vs Uptime)
If your hashrate looks “normal” but your payouts are down, the cause is almost always one (or more) of these four drivers:
(1) difficulty, (2) transaction fees, (3) hashprice, and (4) uptime / share quality.
This guide gives you a practical diagnosis flow so you can identify the real culprit in minutes.
Last updated: 2025-12-28
Start Here: The Simple Earnings Model
In pool mining, your daily revenue is roughly:
- Your hashrate (TH/s)
- multiplied by hashprice (revenue per TH/s per day)
- multiplied by effective uptime (how often you’re actually submitting accepted shares)
- minus losses (stales/rejects) and pool fee
Important: if any one of those variables worsens, earnings can drop even when your miner UI still shows the same TH/s.
1) Difficulty: The Quiet Headwind
Bitcoin difficulty is the protocol’s built-in regulator. It adjusts so that the previous 2,016 blocks would have
averaged about 10 minutes per block. When network hashrate rises over time, difficulty typically rises too, and
your share of the total pie shrinks unless you add more hashrate or upgrade efficiency.
How difficulty causes earnings to drop
- Your TH/s stayed the same, but network difficulty increased → you earn fewer BTC per TH/s.
- This effect is gradual, so miners often notice it only when combined with lower fees or downtime.
Fast check
- If your whole farm is stable but revenue is down across all miners at the same time, difficulty (and/or hashprice) is often involved.
- Look at the most recent difficulty adjustment and the trend over the last 30–90 days.
2) Transaction Fees: The Volatile Component
Miner revenue comes from two sources: block subsidy and transaction fees.
After the April 2024 halving, Bitcoin’s block subsidy became 3.125 BTC, so fee variability matters even more for
short-term payout swings.
In late 2025, industry reporting showed periods where fees contributed less than 1% of total miner revenue
(roughly ~$300k/day in fees at that time), meaning many days offer limited fee “upside” to buffer payouts.
How fee changes show up in your earnings
- If fees drop for a week, miners can see lower payouts even if BTC price and difficulty are flat.
- Your payout method matters: some methods distribute fees as an expected value (smoother), others distribute actual fees (more variable).
Fast check
- Compare “fees per block” or “fee share of miner revenue” for the same period your earnings dropped.
- If your pool uses a method that pays actual fees, expect more day-to-day variance when fee markets cool down.
3) Hashprice: The Best One-Number Profitability Indicator
Hashprice is commonly defined as the expected value of 1 TH/s per day. It compresses multiple variables
(BTC price, difficulty, and fee environment) into one metric. If hashprice falls, earnings fall—period.
Why hashprice falls
- Difficulty rises faster than BTC price
- Fees weaken (less revenue per block)
- BTC price drops while difficulty remains high (difficulty reacts with a lag)
Fast check
- If hashprice declined over the same window your earnings dropped, you’re likely seeing a network-wide profitability squeeze.
- When hashprice is tight, eliminating avoidable stales/rejects is one of the highest-ROI actions you can take.
4) Uptime, Stales, Rejects: The “Invisible Tax” on Your TH/s
Even if your miner screen shows 200 TH/s, the pool pays you for accepted work. If your connection is unstable,
your latency is high, or your miner is overheating/throttling, you can lose measurable revenue without noticing at first.
Common operational causes of payout drops
- Downtime (miner disconnects, ISP issues, power events)
- High stale rate (latency, packet loss, slow job switching)
- High reject/invalid rate (overclock instability, overheating, failing PSU/hashboard, buggy firmware)
- Thermal throttling (your miner reduces performance to protect itself)
Fast check
- If only some miners are affected, suspect local issues (hardware, temps, cabling, PSU, firmware).
- If the entire farm is affected at once, suspect network path/ISP/router overload or wrong stratum region.
5) A 10-Minute Diagnosis Workflow (Use This Every Time)
Step 1: Confirm it’s not a reporting illusion
- Compare earnings over the same duration (e.g., last 24h vs prior 24h) and avoid comparing a partial day to a full day.
- Check whether your payout method or pool policy changed.
Step 2: Check pool-side KPIs first
- Uptime: any gaps in hashrate chart?
- Stale rate / reject rate: did they spike?
- Effective hashrate: does the pool’s effective number match your miner UI over time?
Step 3: Check network-wide drivers
- Difficulty trend: did the last adjustment increase meaningfully?
- Fee environment: did average fees/fee share drop this week?
- Hashprice: did revenue per TH/day decline?
Step 4: If it’s operational, isolate the cause
- Switch to the nearest stratum endpoint (region) and re-test stale rate.
- Test latency and packet loss (wired ethernet preferred; avoid VPN unless necessary).
- Reduce aggressive overclock, check temperatures, and verify stable firmware.
- If one miner is abnormal: swap PSU/cable/port, inspect hashboards, and check error logs.
6) Quick FAQ
“My hashrate is the same. Why is revenue down?”
Because revenue depends on hashprice and accepted shares, not just the displayed TH/s.
Difficulty increases, fee weakness, or higher stales/rejects can reduce payouts without changing the headline hashrate.
“Is a small drop normal?”
Yes. Mining revenue varies with fees, difficulty adjustments, and variance in block finding (especially under payout methods
that distribute actual fees). The key is whether the drop is explained by network metrics or by a preventable operational issue.
“What should I optimize first?”
When margins are tight, reduce the avoidable losses first: stales, rejects, downtime, and throttling.
Those are within your control and often deliver immediate improvements.