if you look below you can see difficulty has basically just gone up since the nov 2021 high go 69 k
My guess is that's because the hashrate per watt went up on newer miners. One way or another, if it wouldn't be worth the running cost, they'd pull the plug.
common sense would say you are correct but that chart shows more mining.
and the efficiency increase do not make up for the price.
ie 69k in nov 2021 with a 30 watts a th machine the diff was under 23t
and 60k in aug 2024 with an 17 watt machine the diff is over 86t
so 86/23 = 3.7x harder to mine a coin
and 30/17 = 1.76x more efficient
so if price really was driven by miners profits it should be 3.7/1.76 = 2.10 x 69k = 145k
or miners should have shut done machines.
There are a lot of hidden angles with mining.
Right now a lot of large companies are gambling that price does moon soon..
Will they be correct ? Or will they eventually quit and shut down?