Bitcoin miners finally have something to celebrate as May profits surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time since January, achieving the biggest revenue increase in four months. However, current returns have cooled significantly, with Bitcoin falling below the $66,000 level on Tuesday, but making a modest recovery the following day.
Important points:
- Bitcoin miners’ revenue exceeded $1.086 billion in May, making it the first month to hit $1 billion since January.
- Hashprice has fallen by 17.82% in 30 days, giving it a daily value of just $30.77 per PH/s.
- The difficulty could be lowered by 7.5% around June 13th, which could ease the pressure on surviving miners.
Miners feel the weight of $66,000 in Bitcoin
The Bitcoin mining sector is struggling with hash price levels not seen since early April, with daily value per petahash/second (PH/s) down 17.82% from a month ago. According to data from hashrateindex.com, the daily revenue generated by 1 PH/s was $37.44 just 30 days ago, and now that number has decreased to about $30.77.
Apart from the current period, April, and the period from February 18th to late March, hashprice has remained at a significantly strong level. Tuesday’s intraday low of $65,362 was more than enough to worry miners, as low prices continue to put a heavy strain on profitability. This is gradually impacting hashing power as the hashrate drops from the 1,000 EH/s range to below 975 EH/s.
One factor working in favor of miners is that reduced computational power has pushed block intervals beyond the network’s goal of 10 minutes. As of this writing, as of 8pm ET on Tuesday, blocks were being generated at an average rate of 10 minutes and 49 seconds. If the current pace continues until approximately June 13th, we expect the network’s mining difficulty to be revised downward.
Current estimates indicate that network difficulty could be reduced by 7.5%.
Miners enter June with a strong month and one big question
Bitcoin miners enjoyed a strong May from a revenue perspective, with monthly revenue exceeding $1 billion for the first time since January. According to statistics from newhedge.io, miners generated $1.086 billion in the same month, of which $1.079 billion was generated by 3.125 $BTC Block grants. In other words, trading fees contributed virtually nothing to that month’s revenue.
Miners have little recourse unless prices move north
Recently, transaction fees, which account for less than 0.6% of total long-term block rewards, have increased slightly. Over the past 24 hours, the average fee revenue has increased slightly, representing approximately 1.16% of the total block reward. This slight increase in fees, perhaps coupled with a decrease in difficulty, provides a small buffer for miners. $BTC Prices remain under pressure, but do little to change the broader economic realities facing the industry.
The minors entered June on the back of a strong May. Whether that continues over the next few weeks will depend on where Bitcoin goes from here.
