The last months of 2026 were tough for Bitcoin owners. ASICa demanding test. Price BTC dropped to annual lows, the network has seen significant difficulty drops several times in a row, and some large publicly traded mining companies have even begun to shift capacity from Bitcoin towards AI infrastructure. Against this backdrop, altcoin miners — primarily Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR) — a completely different picture: their returns are increasing, not decreasing.
A difference in profitability that is hard to ignore
The difference in numbers speaks for itself. At an electricity price of $0,07 per kWh, a specialized ASIC for Zcash, Antminer Z15 Pro, approximately $30,76 in net profit per day. For comparison, the flagship Bitcoin ASIC The Antminer S21 Pro+ will earn approximately thirty times less at the same electricity price.
This difference is not accidental. The Zcash network runs on the Equihash algorithm and Monero to RandomX; both algorithms have their own difficulty schedule, completely independent of what is happening with the bitcoin hashrate. While the network BTC is experiencing turbulence due to the outflow of power and a drop in price, the economy of ZEC and XMR follows its own rules — and the current market situation is currently favorable for them.
What is happening in parallel with bitcoin mining?
Problems BTC miners are systemic, not temporary. The Bitcoin network has seen one of the largest declines in difficulty in all of 2026 — a 10% drop at a price of around $60,000. This is the third significant downward correction this year: difficulty has already fallen in February and March. The reason is always the same — miners with expensive electricity are unable to maintain their current margins and are shutting down their equipment.
The situation is so serious that some publicly traded mining companies have begun to physically shift capacity towards artificial intelligence and high-performance computing instead of mining. BTCOne of the companies even removed the word “bitcoin” from its name — the focus of the business has shifted so significantly.
The electricity price threshold at which BTC ASIC makes a profit at all, it hardly matters to Zcash miners: the Z15 Pro's breakeven point in terms of electricity is above $0,35 per kWh — which means that for most mining operations with an industrial tariff, the price of electricity is no longer a decisive factor.
Is it worth switching?
Of course, this is not a universal advice to "sell BTC ASICya buy a device on ZEC". ZEC and XMR have their own, separate volatility, the liquidity of the altcoin market is lower and specialized ASICEquihash and RandomX are not as easily sold as Bitcoin devices when you need to close a position.
But diversifying equipment at least seems like a rational step. For operators who already have industrial electricity at a low tariff and spare capacity, the difference in profitability between mining BTC and ZEC is large enough that it is at least worth recalculating the economics according to specific operating conditions — current network difficulty, coin price, and actual electricity tariff — before making a decision.
The material is based on data on the profitability of the mining rig and the state of the network as of the end of June 2026. The profitability of mining depends on the price of coins, the difficulty of the network and the price of electricity and can vary significantly.
