Bitcoin Miners Face Leanest Month of 2024: August Earnings Hit Year’s Low

[larry_vw_1955]

Bitcoin miners faced their most challenging revenue month of the year in August, marking the lowest earnings since September 2023. Onchain fees collected in August also dipped, reaching a low not seen since last year, with a $4.14 million drop compared to July.

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-miners-face-leanest-month-of-2024-august-earnings-hit-years-low/

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

I don't see how they are going to get all of these at the same time in the future. Pick one but you can't pick all three. Maybe you can't even pick two.

[Helena Yu]

People including myself are obsessed with money (earn as much as you can and spend as low as you can), so people will vote the number one.

Most people don't really care with high-low hashrate, centralization or decentralization because they always happy when government start accepting Bitcoin as legal tender, whales purchase Bitcoin in large sum, leaving their coins in CEX in order to not pay mining fees, staking in CEX rather than earn nothing etc.

At least even though I care with profit and loss, I don't mind to hold my coins in non custodial wallet.

[davis196]

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

The Bitcoin users want two things.
1.Bitcoin price to the moon baby!
2.Low fees.
I don't think that most Bitcoin users care about hashrates or centralization. It's totally possible to have a way higher Bitcoin price and keep the transaction fees decent. The blockchain just has to be kept away from useless garbage like Ordinals, Runes and other "the next shiny thing" crypto projects. The hashrate can be adjusted when more BTC miners stop mining. Some BTC miners might have to switch to mining altcoins for several months. Nobody can guarantee the BTC miners big profits. Mining is a business like any other business and no profit is guaranteed.

[_act_]

Do not just relate mining to centralization just like that, what you should relate more to centralization are node runners. Node runners are collecting nothing as an incentive.

So if I have to chose, I will choose low fee. If any bitcoin miner is no more making profit from bitcoin mining, they should stop mining so that the money earned by miners will be sufficient for the remaining miners. The hash rate will reduce but not to the extent that it will have negative effect on bitcoin blockchain security.

[Apocollapse]

I've seen few articles talking about Bitcoin miners revenue went down, but why there are no articles talking about mempool went empty which make Bitcoin fee gets cheaper and a best time to consolidate the inputs?

But, when the mempool is full and there are so many people spamming the network, we will see articles talking about how expensive Bitcoin fees is instead of talking Bitcoin miners are earn a lot.

They always talk about bad and popular thing.

[Z-tight]

Fees have been low for the last month or so, and with the BTC halving this year, miners earnings was surely going to take a hit. However, i think things like ordinals and runes that caused tx fees to rise and miners to earn a lot in fees delayed reports or news like this.

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

I don't see how they are going to get all of these at the same time in the future. Pick one but you can't pick all three. Maybe you can't even pick two.

Every bitcoiner wants low fees, but with every halving event and a reduction in miners reward, they are going to depend more and more on tx fees, so if it stays very low, then i think so many miners will pack up their gears and stop mining. I don't think there is a risk of centralization in the BTC network though.

[larry_vw_1955]

I don't think there is a risk of centralization in the BTC network though.

You don't?

Foundry USA secured 1,248 blocks, capturing 29.10% of the total, while Antpool uncovered 1,074 blocks, securing 25.04% of the share.

This means that two mining pools, Foundry USA and Antpool, scooped up 54.14% of the total $851.36 million revenue.

[Z-tight]

You don't?

Foundry USA secured 1,248 blocks, capturing 29.10% of the total, while Antpool uncovered 1,074 blocks, securing 25.04% of the share.

This means that two mining pools, Foundry USA and Antpool, scooped up 54.14% of the total $851.36 million revenue.

Okay, that is something to look at, Foundry USA and Antpool together control a great % of the network's hashrate, but at least that's two different & competing pools, and right now no single mining pool controls >50% of BTC's hashrate. However, i agree with you, the more powerful these pools get, the more likely it is for them to censor and blacklist tx's and addresses based on request from LE and government authorities, i believe that it is the bigger risk than the expensive 51% attack.

[DaveF]

I don't think there is a risk of centralization in the BTC network though.

You don't?

Foundry USA secured 1,248 blocks, capturing 29.10% of the total, while Antpool uncovered 1,074 blocks, securing 25.04% of the share.

This means that two mining pools, Foundry USA and Antpool, scooped up 54.14% of the total $851.36 million revenue.

Let me know when one pool gets above 40% again.
It's 2 pools, one with 10's of 1000's of independent miners.

As of now looking at everything.
1) We have low fees with the occasional spike.
2) A lot of hashrate.
3) More small independent miners then ever before.

They are all using a limited number of pools but that is not a big deal. What pool you use can be changed by miners in a couple of minutes.

Look at it this way, if you want centralization look at ETH where over 80% of their nodes are hosted at Amazon / Hetzner / OVH and other providers. It's like nobody runs their own node at all. (POS or even just for themselves)

-Dave

[stompix]

Let me know when one pool gets above 40% again.
It's 2 pools, one with 10's of 1000's of independent miners.

But also a month ago the stock listed 14 miners had 26.6% of the hashrate, one cycle ago they didn't have even 10%, and they added 17EH/s in one month, they are growing faster than anything else, Marathon has already bought 35Exashash of gear, at current rates 5% of the total.
At 4 cents per th/s there is no way smaller miners will be able to compete in any fashion that it matters, and hobby miners are already done for.

While it might not be as bad as ETH, it won't get better either!

If any bitcoin miner is no more making profit from bitcoin mining, they should stop mining so that the money earned by miners will be sufficient for the remaining miners. The hash rate will reduce but not to the extent that it will have negative effect on bitcoin blockchain security.

If miners drop then not only does it mean a lower hash rate needed to attack but also cheaper gear available to be bought for and datacenters without a client. so ready available power, Bitmain sells their latest miners for $20-25, used miners go for $5 per th/s, suddenly the security is down to a quarter in $. The last thing needed is some top miners going bankrupt and available to buy alongside their gear at scrap-level prices.

[philipma1957]

People including myself are obsessed with money (earn as much as you can and spend as low as you can), so people will vote the number one.

Most people don't really care with high-low hashrate, centralization or decentralization because they always happy when government start accepting Bitcoin as legal tender, whales purchase Bitcoin in large sum, leaving their coins in CEX in order to not pay mining fees, staking in CEX rather than earn nothing etc.

At least even though I care with profit and loss, I don't mind to hold my coins in non custodial wallet.

endless low fees will lower the value of btc.

so you want lower priced btc.

I know you will disagree.

I know you may be correct.

But by 2044 or so we will know which one of us is true.

[TravelMug]

Bitcoin miners faced their most challenging revenue month of the year in August, marking the lowest earnings since September 2023. Onchain fees collected in August also dipped, reaching a low not seen since last year, with a $4.14 million drop compared to July.

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-miners-face-leanest-month-of-2024-august-earnings-hit-years-low/

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

I don't see how they are going to get all of these at the same time in the future. Pick one but you can't pick all three. Maybe you can't even pick two.

Well isn't it that there are months that due to ordinals, miners are raking huge amount of profits? up to the halving where everyone wanted to get on that block?

So with that, I think they are still in the net positive as far as profits good. But as we have seen, those trying to attack the network, sooner or later they will have to stop and with that, we have achieved your (a) low fees.

We don't want high hashrate, it is what it is, it's a miners war and we are the one going to benefit from it.

There are mining company that close recently if I'm not mistaken, and with that, there could be small miners that can enter the picture, hence decentralization.

[Wind_FURY]

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

I don't see how they are going to get all of these at the same time in the future. Pick one but you can't pick all three. Maybe you can't even pick two.

BUT what the Bitcoin network actually needs to "fix this" - A healthy dick pics and fart sounds market directly built on top of the blockchain, and it needs to be all on-chain. Haha.

That may be funny, or scoffed by many users, but what do those users propose to "fix this"? Plus for those users, what the actual purpose of the fee market if they complain that the fees are "very high"?

[348Judah]

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

I don't see how they are going to get all of these at the same time in the future. Pick one but you can't pick all three. Maybe you can't even pick two.

As i can understand it right from time, this has already been achieved and conquered and still remains the same as it was, there is no compromise with the bitcoin network, all we see and why we maintain the use of it is because of its decentralization, and there is nothing to change that, though you have at least have some point over the fee rates in making transactions, but they are not fixed, we have the mempool congested and the fee goes by order of priority with high fees and when less congested everyone have same opportunity at the same time, so nothing changed about bitcoin, while the future still remained secured.

[Wind_FURY]

So bitcoin users want

1) low fees
2) high hashrate
3) lack of centralization

I don't see how they are going to get all of these at the same time in the future. Pick one but you can't pick all three. Maybe you can't even pick two.

As i can understand it right from time, this has already been achieved and conquered and still remains the same as it was, there is no compromise with the bitcoin network, all we see and why we maintain the use of it is because of its decentralization, and there is nothing to change that, though you have at least have some point over the fee rates in making transactions, but they are not fixed, we have the mempool congested and the fee goes by order of priority with high fees and when less congested everyone have same opportunity at the same time, so nothing changed about bitcoin, while the future still remained secured.

Ser, the problem IS actually how could the fees support the security of the network if miners' earnings in fees are not consistent. Peter Todd proposed a solution, and it's ABSOLUTELY not going to make many Bitcoin HODLers very happy. BUT I believe if it's a matter of life or death for Bitcoin, it will be changed. It will probably be another hash war, and the community might understand the miners' debate. I hope the Core Developers will be there as the stewards of the hard fork though, and also remain as the stewards of the network.

[bitgolden]

Feels like we are already getting all three? It's not centralized so we are decentralized and that's a good thing, we do have low fees at the moment as we can see from miners making very little as a proof too, and we do have a good high hashrate at the moment as well, it's enough and we do not need more to be fair.

That means we just need to consider how things are not always the same and we can do whatever we want to do with miners. They are not the ones who are ruling the currently system, it is us that decide what's going to happen and because of that I believe that we are going to be fine about this, there is no denying that at all, we need to be just happy with what we have, and as long as we are happy with it, we shouldn't have a problem.

[yhiaali3]

For me I would choose decentralization with low fees much better than centralization with low fees. I wouldn't choose centralization even without fees.

Decentralization and network security must have a price which is high fees, in any service on the ground you need to pay more additional fees to get a good service, so personally I don't mind miners getting some additional fees (within the acceptable limit for everyone) to continue decentralization and ensure network security.

[nelson4lov]

Decentralization with low fees was the core promise of Bitcoin and not getting that would mean we have failed. Imo, those are the bare minimum requirements that we need for Bitcoin to onboard millions and also be the store of value that it has been regarded as in the past. If we want to onboard everyone, fees have to stay low, possibly lower than current tx fees and transaction confirmations needs to happen quickly. I still wonder how we would fair when there are no block rewards to compensate for low fee months like August 2024.

[swogerino]

For me I would choose decentralization with low fees much better than centralization with low fees. I wouldn't choose centralization even without fees.

Decentralization and network security must have a price which is high fees, in any service on the ground you need to pay more additional fees to get a good service, so personally I don't mind miners getting some additional fees (within the acceptable limit for everyone) to continue decentralization and ensure network security.

The fees are not that high as long as I see 0.80 dollars a fee to be included in next block which is usually ten minutes or less as not big at all and a fair price to be paid to use this wonderful technology of money. I strongly agree with keeping security at the top and keep things like we have now. I know mining is game over from a long time and that August month is only something below average and normal beside some few months before. I personally love Bitcoin but have to be honest, some altcoins like Litecoin has a much lower fee and a much faster confirmation in the network, it is what I use in my gambling activities as I don't like that much to wait while Bitcoin is the main currency to use as a store of value, meaning keeping the amounts when the new all time come in this currency.

[yhiaali3]

I personally love Bitcoin but have to be honest, some altcoins like Litecoin has a much lower fee and a much faster confirmation in the network, it is what I use in my gambling activities as I don't like that much to wait while Bitcoin is the main currency to use as a store of value, meaning keeping the amounts when the new all time come in this currency.

Yes, I also use the same method when the Bitcoin network fees are somewhat high or there is a time delay in transactions, where sometimes I use LTC or some other altcoins in order to reduce the fees and get a fast transaction.

Many people have started using this method when the network is congested and the fees are high, some of them also prefer to keep the high-value Bitcoin for the long term instead of wasting it on simple daily transactions.