Are The Big Bitcoin Miners Preparing to Empty Their Bags? 

A Bitcoin sell-off may be looming as miners face increasing pressure due to a sharp decline in revenues following the April 20 halving that reduced block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

On May 13, cryptocurrency research firm Caico revealed that the recent halving reduced daily production from 900 to 450 bitcoins, resulting in a loss of about $10 billion in revenue annually based on prices at the time.

Is a miner sale imminent?

Miners were initially able to maintain revenue streams supported by high transaction fees from the meme craze and the launch of Bitcoin Runes, however, activity on both fronts has waned since then.

Two of the largest public Bitcoin miners, Marathon and Riot, hold 17,631 BTC worth just over $1.1 billion and 8,872 BTC worth over $500 million, respectively. According to To Kaiko.

Transaction fees accounted for 16% of the BTC earned by Marathon Digital in April, up from 4.5% in March, before adding “a recent decrease in fees may lead to selling pressure from miners.”

“If miners are forced to sell even a small portion of their holdings over the next month, this will have a negative impact on the markets.”

She added: “Trading activity usually slows down, and liquidity dries up during the summer months.”

could $ Bitcoin Miners become forced sellers as fees fall?

Higher transaction fees offset lower corporate mining rewards in April, but this has since reversed.

Check out our latest takeaways for the full trend:https://t.co/mvlZi2k0sv

– Kaiko (@KaikoData) May 13, 2024

Bitcoin miners sold most of their reserves amid the 2022 cryptocurrency collapse, the report reads.

However, they have held more over the past two years with a sharp rebound in asset prices that rose 350% from a cycle low of $16,500 in December 2022 to a peak of more than $73,500 in March.

Major mining companies like Marathon have failed to meet revenue expectations as a result of this and other factors.

Retail pricing problems

The profitability, or hash price, has declined in recent weeks and currently stands at $0.050 terahash per second per day. According to to HashRateIndex. This represents a 72% decline from the $0.182/s/day level it reached around the time of the halving.

The network's average hash rate also reached a peak of around 650 EH/s in late April, further exacerbating miners' problems as competition for the next block reward intensifies.

This was measured by network difficulty, which is also near peak levels of 83.15 Tesla, although it has fallen from its record high of 88 Tesla on May 9.