• Bitcoin miners are beginning to enjoy some respite in the current year after struggling in 2022 with a drop in BTC holdings of 12.1% YoY.
• Profitability is returning to the mining industry as BTC’s price has risen by around 50% in 2023 and the hash rate has hit a new all-time high of 300 TH/s.
• Bitcoin miners are selling their BTC to exchanges at extremely low levels compared to previous years, suggesting that mining BTC is currently cheaper.
Public Bitcoin Miners Show Financial Resilience
BTC Holdings Drop 12.1% Year-on-Year
As of Jan. 2022, Bitcoin miners held 36,003 BTC, with mining firms like Core Scientific, Riot, Hut8, Marathon, and Bitfarms holding over 30,000 coins. However, the landscape changed drastically over the course of 2021: Hut 8, Marathon, and Riot control 87% — 27,760 BTC — of the miners‘ total holdings now according to CryptoSlate research. This can be attributed to difficulties faced by Core Scientific and Bitfarms throughout 2022.
Shares Soar Upward
The shares of several major miner companies have seen significant growth on the year-to-date (YTD) metric: Hut8 shares up 114%, Riot up 181%, Iris up 123%, Marathon up 101%, etc. These numbers suggest that these companies are recovering from their financial struggles despite a decline in overall BTC holdings among miners as a whole.
Profits Rising
Bitcoin’s price has risen by around 50% since January 2023 and briefly traded above $25K for the first time since August 2022 on Feb 16th; this increase in value returns profitability to Bitcoin mining operations while pushing hash rate up 34% year-on-year and hitting an all-time high at 300 TH/s — indicating network consistency and strength. Glassnode data analyzed by CryptoSlate also shows that miners are selling their Bitcoin holdings to exchanges at extremely low levels compared to previous years; this suggests that it’s currently cheaper than ever before to mine Bitcoin profitably on an individual or corporate level.
Mining Industry Looking Up
In summary: major public crypto mining firms like Hut 8 and Riot appear to be recovering from financial difficulties as profits return due to rising cryptocurrency prices; meanwhile they’re also selling off their bitcoin reserves at lower rates than before which indicates confidence within the industry; finally network hash rate is increasing steadily which demonstrates its strength against external factors such as government regulation or halving cycles. All signs point towards better times ahead for public cryptocurrency miners!
Conclusion
It appears that public Bitcoin Miners have managed to weather difficult times despite dropping 12.1% YoY in terms of BTC holdings – thanks mainly due increased profits via higher prices & lower costs associated with mining operations; coupled with healthy hashrate figures it seems like these companies could well be entering into more prosperous times ahead!
