The post-halving impact on Bitcoin miners is becoming more evident, as onchain data shows that miners’ bitcoin reserves have dropped to a three-year low.
Data from CryptoQuant shows that reserves dropped to 1.8 million BTC as of Aug. 12. The last time reserves were at this level bitcoin had just hit a record high in 2021.
Although Bitcoin superseded that record, hitting an all-time high ahead of $73,750 in March, it is now trading around 18% lower after weeks of volatility. First, it was the German government offloading $2.9 billion worth of bitcoin, and then global risk-off sentiment following the largest single-day spike in volatility triggered another bitcoin sell-off. Typically, miners wait until periods where bitcoin’s price is tracking significantly higher before selling their holdings for fiat.
As miner reserves dropped to a three-year low, the network’s hashrate just soared to a new record high of 627 exahashes per second (EH/s). The hashrate is a measure of the computational power to mine and process bitcoin transactions on the network. A higher hashrate indicates a more secure network as more miners are competing to validate transactions.
Last month, Unchained reported that miner profitability had reached a 6-month low, largely driven by the higher hashrate, while “hash price,” or the amount a miner can expect to earn at current hashrate, was at its lowest point in five years.
Bitcoin miner TeraWulf reported a 21% decline in the amount of Bitcoin it mined in Q2 2024 compared to the same period last year.
