Falling Token Prices Threaten Mac Rental Earnings
Darkbloom, a decentralized AI inference network that aggregates and sells spare compute capacity from Macs, told its members to expect revenues to fall as token prices continue to drop. According to industry reports, the price per million tokens for Anthropic dropped by 77% in under five months, falling to $0.62 in October 2026 from $2.65 in May.
Data centers have become significantly cheaper to operate as output per Nvidia cluster surges. Industry researchers note that market margins are wide enough for major providers to slash prices drastically while remaining profitable. As a result, decentralized platforms struggle to maintain competitive pricing without squeezing operator margins into negative territory.
Earnings Projections for Mac Operators
It is estimated that running an M5 Pro Mac Mini with 64GB of Unified Memory could earn up to $192 per month under optimal conditions. However, the median earnings of top operators on Darkbloom leaderboard hover around $159.86 monthly, translating to roughly $5.26 daily. Factoring in the 77% drop in Anthropic token prices, these projected earnings shrink to approximately $36.77 per month, or about $1.23 daily.
The Rapid Acceleration of AI Affordability
AI token prices are falling so rapidly that they have outpaced Moore's Law, with some estimates suggesting AI becomes up to 50% cheaper every quarter. While companies continue to burn through annual AI budgets quickly, this is largely driven by soaring usage of agentic AI rather than per-token costs. Additionally, primary clients like OpenRouter have begun prioritizing decode speed, quantization, and prefill speed, putting users without high-end Apple Max or Ultra chips at a competitive disadvantage.
Network Adjustments and New Workloads
Despite market pressures, Darkbloom is analyzing model demand to guide members toward more lucrative models. The platform is also exploring alternative workloads beyond inference, such as distributed CI/CD jobs, while working to enhance overall network performance and diversify its client base beyond OpenRouter.
