Key Points
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Bitcoin’s miners expend energy to produce the coin.
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If the coin’s price is too low relative to the cost of their inputs, they stop mining.
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That tends to only happen when the coin has fully bottomed out.
- 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin ›
On the basis of its price right now relative to where it was at the same point in its prior four-year market cycles, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) looks pretty cheap, with a price of $77,155 as of Sept. 1, 38% below its last all-time high near $126,080, which was set in October 2025.
Of course, Bitcoin “cycle theory” isn’t an empirically proven law, but it can be a useful framework for understanding the coin’s behavior relative to past periods. If we take that caveat in stride, there’s reason to believe decent returns await those who buy it now, so let’s examine the case for it being priced at a bargain.
Miners capitulated like they always do, and they aren’t back yet
Bitcoin miners are businesses that lend their computing power to the network to produce new coins by essentially burning electricity on difficult calculations.
When the coin’s price drops below its production cost, such as during a bear market, the least efficient miners have to capitulate and shut down their rigs to stop operating at a loss, and the network’s total computing power, called the hash rate, declines. If the hash rate declines by too much, it takes longer for each new block to be mined, which triggers an automatic downward adjustment to the protocol’s mining difficulty. Then, when mining becomes a bit easier again, the recently discouraged operators can return, as they’re more likely to be profitable with a lower mining difficulty, and more Bitcoin is subsequently produced.
Therefore, one useful way to determine whether the coin is underpriced or overpriced is to look at the average hash rate across different intervals, as a declining hash rate suggests the network will need to self-correct, which is most likely to occur when the coin’s price is lowest.
By this metric, Bitcoin began to see major miner capitulation in late November 2025. Additionally, the hash rate stayed depressed for one of the longest stretches on record, trading below its average production cost. The hash rate remains about 33% below its September 2025 peak despite starting to edge slightly higher in August, which is strong evidence that the coin’s price is still too low for many miners to bother with — and thus also a good argument for the asset being heavily undervalued.
Here’s another cut of the data
There’s another way to look at Bitcoin’s valuation relative to miner inputs.
Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards told Cointelegraph on July 24 that Bitcoin, then priced at $65,270, was trading about 40% below its energy value, a fair-value estimate he built using estimates of the electrical energy miners are obligated to pour into the network to produce more coins. Per data pulled on Sept. 2, the coin’s energy value is around $107,773, implying a discount of roughly 27% today, which means it’s still quite undervalued. In past market cycles, such large gaps have tended to close by the price massively overshooting the energy value.
So the odds are good that the coin is actually priced at a bargain right now. In fact, I’m betting on it by buying more.
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Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.