Sept 27 (Reuters) – Spare a thought for the beleaguered bitcoin miner.
In late 2021, miners were the toast of the town with a surefire path to profit: hook powerful computers up to cheap power, crack fiendishly complex maths puzzles and then sell newly minted coins on the booming market.
A year’s a long time in crypto.
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Global revenue from bitcoin mining has dropped to $17.2 million a day amid a crypto winter and global energy crisis, down about 72% from last November when miners were racking up $62 million a day, according to data from Blockchain.com.
“Bitcoin miners have continued to watch margins compress – the price of bitcoin has fallen, mining difficulty has risen and energy prices have soared,” said Joe Burnett, head analyst at Blockware Solutions.
That’s put serious pressure on some players who bought expensive mining machines, or rigs, banking on rising bitcoin prices to recoup their investment.
Bitcoin is trading at around $19,000 and has failed to break above $25,000 since August, let alone regain November’s all-time high of $69,000.
At the same time, the process of solving puzzles to mine tokens has become more difficult as more miners have come online. This means they must devour more computing power, further upping operating costs, especially for those without long-term power pricing agreements.
Bitcoin miners’ profit for one terahash per second of computing power has fluctuated between $0.119 and $0.070 a day since July, down from $0.45 in November last year and around its lowest levels for two years.
The grim state of affairs could be here to stay, too: Luxor’s Hashrate Index, which measures mining revenue potential, has fallen almost 70% so far this year.
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It’s been painful for miners.
