Bitcoin miners have experienced a 27% drop in earnings per petahash over the past five months, with current earnings at $46.92 per PH/s. This decline is due to a combination of decreasing hashprice and record-high network difficulty, which has reached 150.84 trillion. The upcoming difficulty adjustment on October 16 is expected to reduce difficulty by 5.84%, potentially easing some of the financial strain on miners. Despite maintaining a hashrate above 1,000 exahash per second, miners are facing slower block times, further impacting their profitability.