The
difficulty of mining Bitcoin (BTC) has surged to unprecedented levels,
intensifying competition among publicly listed cryptocurrency miners from Wall
Street and putting pressure on their profit margins. Despite the “miners go
BRRR” (reference to a popular money-printing meme) at full speed, it’s insufficient to keep up
with the increase in network complexity.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty
Reaches All-Time High, Squeezing Bitcoin Miners Profit Margins
According
to data from crypto-mining tracker CoinWarz,
mining difficulty increased by 3.5% on Wednesday, reaching a new record high.
This metric, which reflects the computational power required to mine new
Bitcoin, has been steadily climbing and is often seen as an indicator of future
price movements.
The rise in
difficulty comes at a challenging time for miners, who are still grappling with
the effects of April’s “halving” event. This programmed reduction in
mining rewards has already cut potential revenues by half, contributing to a
roughly 10% drop in Bitcoin’s price since then.
“The 4th
Bitcoin halving event cut the number of daily coins mined (and all else equal,
the daily revenue opportunity) in half, resulting in lower margins and
profitability across our coverage universe,” commented Reginald Smith and
Charles Pearce in the recent JPMorgan report.
However, the increasing difficulty has not deterred miners from expanding their operations. Bitcoin’s hash rate, which measures the total computing power
supporting the network, also hit an all-time high in September. This suggests
that miners are betting on a significant price increase in the near future.
Despite the
challenges, Bitcoin’s price has shown resilience, rising 38% year-to-date and
reaching a peak of $73,798 in March. The cryptocurrency was trading at around
$58,000 on Thursday.
Higher Difficulty = Lower
Output
The mining
industry’s struggles are reflected in the stock performance of major publicly
traded mining companies. Shares of Marathon Digital Inc. and Riot Platforms
Inc. have fallen 31% and 54% respectively this year.
“During the second quarter of 2024, our BTC production was impacted by unexpected equipment failures and transmission line maintenance at the Ellendale site operated by Applied Digital, increased global hash rate, and the April halving event,” said Fred Thiel, CEO of publicly traded miner Marathon Digital Holdings. The company’s revenue for the second quarter was $145.1 million, missing the FactSet estimate of $157.9…
