[NEWS] 'Dire Picture' for BTC Miners as Revenue Flatlines Near Record Low

[bbc.reporter]

What is everyone's speculation on this news report? Is this something for the bitcoin community to begin to worry or will this news only begin a new season of the bitcoin mining death spiral fud. We can be quite certain that miners will stop selling what they mine and begin borrowing stablecoins and fiat to maintain their cashflow similar occurrence to the last mining death spiral fud.

It will be very headshaking if the cryptonews media will begin spreading this type of fud again instead of searching and publishing articles that show a solution.



Hashprice, a key metric used to gauge miner revenue, is currently hovering near a five-year low, according to HashRate Index—a stark reminder of how difficult the mining business has become.

In simple terms, the metric is the income miners can expect per unit of computing power, denoted by per petahash (PH/s). It can be denominated in U.S. dollars or BTC, although it's most commonly quoted in USD for practical comparison.

Despite the higher BTC price, miner revenue is dwindling, which paints a dire picture of the mining industry as a whole after the recent halving event cut the rewards by half. Rising competition, higher mining difficulty, lower transaction revenue, and spiking energy costs have added more pressure to the revenue.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/04/20/chart-of-the-day-dire-picture-for-btc-miners-as-revenue-flatlines-near-record-low

[Catenaccio]

Bitcoin Hash Ribbons Indicator chart shows that hard time has been existing recent months for Bitcoin miners.
https://www.bitcoinmagazinepro.com/charts/hash-ribbons/

It is bad, but not worst.
https://charts.bitbo.io/miner-capitulation/

Big and strong miners with deepest mining capital resources and best risk and capital management as well as strongest survivalability will continue their existence and operation. In long term, Bitcoin blockchain keep rolling onwards, and strongest Bitcoin miners will continue earning profit.

Weak miners have to capitulate mostly in a bear market, some shortly after a Bitcoin halving, and others even during a bull market by over leveraging and lack of ability to survive in market crash and sideway.

[Die_empty]

The article OP shared also contains this

However, it's not all bad. At around $44.00 PH/s levels, depending on what type of mining machines miners are using, miners can still be near or at breakeven, although far from 2021's mining bull run

Just like every other business, there are bad times when profit might become low or even non-existent. Smart business owners will have to seek ways to survive until the market becomes more profitable. It's not as bad as it seems since miners have options to enable them to remain in business.

[pooya87]

I couldn't figure out how they measure "Hashprice" (for global mining revenue not just their own company in Delaware, US) and how it can be as low as 5 years ago when price was 1/10 today! Specially when there isn't even a fixed global electricity price that plays an integral role in measuring revenue! Even the difference between prices is so massive that makes it impossible. For example in the US itself the range is from $0.10/kwh to $0.40 and when you go global the range grows even bigger, for example here our rate starts at $0.0007/kwh.

But the situation where some complain about their revenue mining bitcoin is not a new one. We have seen this many times and each time they talk about "death spiral" just because they don't understand how bitcoin mining and PoW works.

[yhiaali3]

Certainly, some pessimists and skeptics will start talking about a Bitcoin mining downward spiral and the like, but I don't think the situation is that bad. Yes, the mining sector is going through difficult times, as are other economic sectors around the world, due to the poor economic conditions and the repercussions of the tariff war, but I don't think this is the end.

Business may falter in countries with high electricity costs, and the solution will be to move to countries with cheaper electricity or to seek cheap energy alternatives. Alternatively, miners will have to hold onto Bitcoin for the long term until they sell at a profitable price.

The real problem will be the next halving, not now. If the price doesn't rise enough to cover miners' expenses, what will happen to mining?

[Free Market Capitalist]

Certainly, some pessimists and skeptics will start talking about a Bitcoin mining downward spiral and the like, but I don't think the situation is that bad.

I would rather say that this is a clear sign that the real bull run is about to begin.

The real problem will be the next halving, not now. If the price doesn't rise enough to cover miners' expenses, what will happen to mining?

As with previous halvings, the system will be self-regulating. Besides worrying about what might happen 4 years from now I don't think it will do any good. Maybe you could also consider what will happen if in 4 years the bitcoin price in $ is 7 figures.

[hero_the_bossman]

Wait for what news are going to say once BTC hits a new ATH.

"A life change for miners and ordinary people alike - behold!", or something similar

[bbc.reporter]

But the situation where some complain about their revenue mining bitcoin is not a new one. We have seen this many times and each time they talk about "death spiral" just because they don't understand how bitcoin mining and PoW works.

Also similar to these previous times where bitcoin had a low price and mining was not profitable for some miners, they can loan money to maintain and continue their company's cashflow. There will also be others that will turn off their mining farms which will certainly help the miners that continue to mine.

Mining might become more centralized, however. But this might also be temporary depending if these miners that left will come back and mine again.

[nutildah]

Overall network hash rate has exploded since 2022. In just 3 years, the hash rate quadrupled, from 200 to 800 exahash per day. It actually briefly surpassed 1 zettahash for the first time on April 5th but has come back down to about 800 exahash just recently.

So this means that hobbyists are being crowded out and the only way to turn a mining profit these days is to have the best hardware at the lowest energy prices. A lot of miners don't mind mining at a loss on the expectation that the price of BTC will continue to rise, but I imagine they are now fewer and further in between.

[franky1]

as always..
asic farms dont play to the whims of daily price. only hobby miners jump in and out

asic farms plan out 2 years of mining non-stop.
 - they buy hardware in bulk for a 2 year lifecycle. (which they spread costs over 2 years)
 - they do electric contract deals to buy enough MW/GW to cover the 2 year of mining and get preferential rates

for instance in america.. domestic(residential) electric cost is average of $0.15/kwh..
 industrial is average of $0.08 but with preferential rate can be $0.07 or below

the most economic electric price on planet is still ~$0.04/kwh

so lets do some math using current numbers
network hashrate: lets call it 900exahash average this quarter

using this as example


288Thash  4.9kw   $3456unit cost

900,000,000thash/288 = 3.125m asics
3.125m * $3456 /105000blocks /3.125btc = $32,914 hardware cost per btc

3.125 *4.9kw = 15,312,500KW used per hour
$0.04kwh= 15,312,500 *.04 / 6/3.125= $32,666 electric cost most efficient on planet + $32,914 = $65,580 /btc
$0.07kwh= 15,312,500 *.07 / 6/3.125= $57,166 2 year average contracted US industrial + $32,914 = $90,080 /btc
$0.08kwh= 15,312,500 *.08 / 6/3.125= $65,333 monthly average US industrial + $32,914 = $98,247/btc
$0.15kwh= 15,312,500 *.15 / 6/3.125= $122,500 monthly average US hobby residential + $32,914 = $155,414/btc
$0.50kwh= 15,312,500 *.50 / 6/3.125= $408,333 monthly average international top premium + $32,914 =$441,247/btc

as you can see planets most efficient miners and us miners on 2 year bulk industrial contract can profit

this means that those in US monthly industrial, US monthly hobby and international premium countries are not profit mining and more likely to just buy from the market at a discount, which adds support to the market to not be a 'zero bottom' economy.
which is why market did not dip below $70k this year due to $65,580 /btc most efficient on planet being the ultimate support bottom
 
anyways
so american hobby miners switch off asics and instead are market buyers, as are the more premium countries. such as the pacific islands like japan and hawaii
UK, EU are also in the above orange and below red so they too are market buyers presently, as its cheaper to buy rather than mine

also worth noting the most premium cost on planet is a future ATH market test of ~$440k tops presently.
this is normally the economic ceiling whereby everyone on planet can mine for less than $XXXk meaning the market will test to and no one on planet thinks its profitable to buy when the true bitcoin market economics plays out the expectant ATH this autumn/winter

so if hashrate stays at ~900exa for next 6 months dont expect a $1m btc ATH this autumn/winter

[Lucius]

~snip~
It will be very headshaking if the cryptonews media will begin spreading this type of fud again instead of searching and publishing articles that show a solution.

Haven't they already? However, everything related to BTC mining has a very narrow audience, so articles like this (and similar) don't bother them too much - the rest have a hard time understanding what it's all about anyway.

Despite the higher BTC price, miner revenue is dwindling, which paints a dire picture of the mining industry as a whole after the recent halving event cut the rewards by half. Rising competition, higher mining difficulty, lower transaction revenue, and spiking energy costs have added more pressure to the revenue.

Recent halving? Well, that happened 1+ year ago, and apparently the author of the article was "inspired" to try to bring a little drama into all of this. Miners will mine as long as it is profitable for them, and given that there are still 1+ million BTC left that can be obtained in this way, I have no doubt that the competition will be even greater in the coming years.

[DaveF]

What @franky1 left out on the expense side is the additional cost of cooling, rent on the space, labor, taxes, and other general things in running a business.

What was left out on the profit side was the resale of the equipment when they are done with it, the very little bit of coins that you can merge mine and grabbing money from other people to get paid not to mine on heavy use days: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/03/texas-bitcoin-profit-electricity/

You can look at the base numbers and extrapolate from there if you can or cannot make a profit but there are 1000s of other factors to think about besides just cost of equipment and power.

-Dave

[franky1]

What @franky1 left out on the expense side is the additional cost of cooling, rent on the space, labor, taxes, and other general things in running a business.

What was left out on the profit side was the resale of the equipment when they are done with it, the very little bit of coins that you can merge mine and grabbing money from other people to get paid not to mine on heavy use days: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/03/texas-bitcoin-profit-electricity/

You can look at the base numbers and extrapolate from there if you can or cannot make a profit but there are 1000s of other factors to think about besides just cost of equipment and power.

-Dave

oh im sorry that i did not wall of text every factor imaginable[sarc].. but as you agree and even highlight your second paragraph covers the extra costs of the first paragraph .. so generally balances out as after thoughts.. so it gets back to the basic math for working out ROI the way i demonstrated

so i kept it basic and simple for calculating demo purposes
..

as for the link
yep some asic farms actually do notice the live-market  prices of electricity grid can swing hourly
here in the UK(easiest example i can find) the price swing when selling to the grid swings quite a bit
its not just a 1-5% swing, but much more at times


EG mining midnight to 6am and then noon to 3pm is ~£70/mw
but then can go upto ~£120/mw(6pm-8pm prime time)
which then makes it more profitable to just sell some of its MW allocation (not use it) back to the grid

infact there were times part of some asic miners side business(separate department/subsidiary) was purely to not mine at all for months and just trade electric credit to get profit to cover costs on the main asic business

if your mining for hours to get btc earning only 5% profit, but multiple hours a day you can get 10%-70% profit for multiple hours. some just end up selling to the grid
but there are a base level amount of mining farms that make enough profit from mining that they just keep mining

hense why i tried to separate the industrial into 2 categories the 'monthly industrial' vs the '2 year industrial' because not all industrial do hop in and out of mining. its only a small percentage that do this

[DaveF]

....but as you agree and even highlight your second paragraph covers the extra costs of the first paragraph....

You hope everything in the 2nd paragraph covers everything in the 1st.

Banks, and real corporate investors want to see all of that in writing. With all the possibilities of what may or may not happen.

Talking about it here, yeah, 100% what you posted is all you really need and the rest of the numbers can kind of fake themselves.

But in the real world, where these industrial miners mine that the article in the OP was talking about it's all factored in.

In the end it does not matter that much here, since I doubt too many people on this forum are about to drop 10s of millions of $ to setup a large industrial mine.
And the ones running smaller setups, have a different set of things to deal with / worry about.

-Dave

[franky1]

....but as you agree and even highlight your second paragraph covers the extra costs of the first paragraph....

You hope everything in the 2nd paragraph covers everything in the 1st.

Banks, and real corporate investors want to see all of that in writing. With all the possibilities of what may or may not happen.

Talking about it here, yeah, 100% what you posted is all you really need and the rest of the numbers can kind of fake themselves.

But in the real world, where these industrial miners mine that the article in the OP was talking about it's all factored in.
-Dave

put it this way.
an 10 exahash farm is ~35k asics running
imagining each asic fails once every 6 months and needs to be swapped out to be repaired/diagnosed
in that 6 months 4,320 hours give one worker 7minute to swap out an asic
so it only needs 1-2 workers to handle swaps giving them 7-15 minutes to pull 2 cables out and plug another asic in..
only a couple workers swapping the asics to keep them online and another couple for diagnosing or shipping in and out replacements

if you are imagining an asic farm needs 100 workers.. your over thinking things

10exahash is 1.1% of network
3.125*144blocks a day = 450btc a day /1.1% = 5btc a day
so if that 10exahash farm is making ~5btc ($450k a day) and paying workers $450 a day each worker for say 10 workers
only represents 1% so its not like labour is a big expense compared to value generated

as for the building lease cost. again its not like they are paying hundreds of thousands a day, nor a week on leases.. (based on UK prices as a easy find for me here in the UK). a 75k foot² is not £300k a day.. but £300k a year so again not even 1% ($400k per year lease=$1.1k a day(0.2%))

and like WE said and agree if they via side business can make 5%-70% hustling the national grid electric credits.. that labour 1% expense and <1% building lease becomes an insignificant cost to need to waste lines of text explaining.. yet you just made me do it

[cr1776]

Certainly, some pessimists and skeptics will start talking about a Bitcoin mining downward spiral and the like, but I don't think the situation is that bad.

I would rather say that this is a clear sign that the real bull run is about to begin.

The real problem will be the next halving, not now. If the price doesn't rise enough to cover miners' expenses, what will happen to mining?

As with previous halvings, the system will be self-regulating. Besides worrying about what might happen 4 years from now I don't think it will do any good. Maybe you could also consider what will happen if in 4 years the bitcoin price in $ is 7 figures.

We are actually about 2.9 years away from the next halving - late March 2028 or thereabouts.  But yes, as you say, the system is self-regulating and there is no logical reason to think that it won't continue to be so in the future.

[bbc.reporter]

Certainly, some pessimists and skeptics will start talking about a Bitcoin mining downward spiral and the like, but I don't think the situation is that bad.

I would rather say that this is a clear sign that the real bull run is about to begin.

The real problem will be the next halving, not now. If the price doesn't rise enough to cover miners' expenses, what will happen to mining?

As with previous halvings, the system will be self-regulating. Besides worrying about what might happen 4 years from now I don't think it will do any good. Maybe you could also consider what will happen if in 4 years the bitcoin price in $ is 7 figures.

We are actually about 2.9 years away from the next halving - late March 2028 or thereabouts.  But yes, as you say, the system is self-regulating and there is no logical reason to think that it won't continue to be so in the future.

Also, if the leading miners cannot anymore sustain themselves to keep mining bitcoin, I speculate that certain people will use the greatest regulator on the network to make miners continue to mine profitably. Pump the price hehehehhe.

If there are enough institutional investors and governments holding bitcoin, they will certainly have no other choice but to pump the price using any method to help the miners and protect their investments.

[NotATether]

Are they predicting bear season for miners again? If so, this isn't new. We have been through many bad winters for the miners especially. It's not like it's the end of the world, although some people act like it is.