Bitcoin electrical cost at $48,694 frames potential 2026 bottom

Capriole Investments, led by Charles Edwards, reports Bitcoin’s on-chain “electrical cost” at $48,694. The metric estimates the average electricity expense miners pay to produce one bitcoin. Bitcoin is trading near $63,000, about 50% below its record high.

The electrical cost measures only energy outlays. A separate production-cost metric includes hardware and other overhead and therefore sets a higher breakeven level. Traders and analysts monitor the electrical cost because price has rarely closed below it for extended periods.

Charts reaching back to 2012 show the electrical-cost line running beneath market price through prior cycles. Bitcoin recorded rebounds near that metric at the 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2022 lows. Analyst Ted Pillows wrote that the line ‘tracks below the price through every cycle’ and added that, absent a major shock, a bottom near $50,000 is plausible.

Edwards cautioned that price has fallen under the electrical cost during acute market shocks, but only briefly. He observed, ‘Yes it has dropped below, but only for a couple weeks in history.’

The electrical cost sits within a series of on-chain and technical supports. Bitcoin tested the 200-week moving average near $62,000 this month. Below that level are the 300-week moving average and the realized price, roughly $54,000, with the electrical cost near $48,694. Several independent cycle-low charts mark the $40,000s as a deeper trough should those supports fail.

Analyst Benjamin Cowen projects a base-case market bottom in October 2026. A separate count tied to the next halving points to a comparable window, about 125 days out. Those timing estimates overlap with where the electrical-cost level appears on price charts.

Market participants flag macro events as potential influences on whether price holds above or drops below the electrical cost. The Federal Reserve meets on June 17 and the Bank of Japan has a policy decision scheduled soon. In 2022, Bitcoin traded beneath the 200-week moving average for months, a precedent analysts cite when discussing downside risk.

If weekly closes fall under the realized price near $54,000, analysts say the electrical cost at $48,694 would become the next test. A sustained break of that floor would expose the $40,000 range identified on several cycle-low charts. Upcoming weeks of trading and the central bank meetings will affect which scenario unfolds.