Bitcoin surged this week while the network hash rate hit an all-time high. The hash rate, which measures the collective computing power of miners, indicates more participants than ever are securing the network. However, investment bank Jefferies noted that mining profitability dropped significantly in August as Bitcoin miners faced increased competition for diminishing rewards. Firms are diversifying into AI and high-performance computing. Core Scientific has signed over a $6 billion deal with CoreWeave for AI-powered operations.