According to Bitcoin mining pool operator F2Pool, there were only five Bitcoin mining rigs (ASICs) currently in operation at the current price as the cryptocurrency plunged below $55,000 on Friday morning.
The Antminer S21 Hydro, Antminer S21, Avalon A1466I, Antminer S19 XP Hydro, and Antminer S19 XP are currently profitable with breakeven Bitcoin prices of $39,581, $43,292, $48,240, $51,456, and $53,187, respectively, according to F2Pool.
According to The Block’s Bitcoin price page, the Whatsminer M56S++ is on the verge of profitability, with a break-even point of $54,424, and the Bitcoin price at the time of writing is $54,407.
Meanwhile, Bitmain’s Antminer S19k Pro, one of the most dominant ASIC miners on the market since 2020 Bitcoin Bitcoin
-4.039%
The Halfling was removed from the list of profitable machines, with a break-even price reported at $56,898.
“With Bitcoin trading below $58,000, what is mining profitability now? At $0.08/kWh, ASICs with less than 23W/T efficiency are operating at a loss,” F2Pool explained.
Bitcoin ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) are specialized hardware designed specifically for Bitcoin mining. Unlike general-purpose computing hardware such as CPUs or GPUs, ASICs are custom-built to perform a specific task. In this case, the complex calculations required for Bitcoin mining.
As the hashrate continues to drop, hash prices hit all-time lows despite negative difficulty adjustments.
Bitcoin is down more than 5% in the last 24 hours and 11% over the past week, with the hashrate, which measures the revenue of Bitcoin miners per unit of hash power, dropping to an all-time low of 44.50 PH/s on Friday, according to the Hashrate Index. This is despite a 5% negative difficulty adjustment, according to Bithumb data earlier today.
Meanwhile, the total hashrate of the Bitcoin network continues to drop since Bitcoin’s fourth halving in April. Less efficient miners are feeling the pinch as the block subsidy reward is reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
According to The Block’s data dashboard, the 7-day moving average network hash rate fell more than 12% from 629.44 EH/s on April 20 to 550.25 EH/s at the end of June. The average network hash rate is currently at 586.49 EH/s as of Thursday.
However, Friday’s negative difficulty adjustment could help alleviate some of the current difficulties for some miners, and make mining blocks slightly easier compared to the past two weeks.
As the number of miners increases, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin increases. Conversely, as the number of miners competing to find new blocks decreases, the protocol lowers the mining difficulty, making it easier for the remaining miners to find blocks.
Is Bitcoin Miners’ Surrender a Bottom Signal?
Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards noted Friday that Bitcoin’s 27% drop from its March 14 all-time high of $73,836 ended a record 427-day streak without a 25% drop, and that much of the selling pressure was due to miners selling off both new bitcoin mining and their bitcoin reserves. “We’re 63 days ahead of the 2012 record,” he said. “This is an incredible bull market that we’ve had, and it’s in dire need of a correction.”
The number of days since Bitcoin fell more than 25%. Image: Capriole Investments.
A report released Wednesday by analysts at CryptoQuant found that daily miner outflows have surged significantly in recent weeks, suggesting Bitcoin miners are likely to turn off underperforming hardware and sell their coins following the halving.
According to CryptoQuant analysts, there are a number of signs of miner capitulation, which historically has seen prices bottom out. According to the data provider’s metrics, miners have been paid “extremely low wages” for most of the period since April.
According to The Block’s data dashboard, daily mining revenue has fallen from $72 million on April 20 to $28 million as of Thursday.
CryptoQuant analysts added that the last comparable hashrate decline occurred after the FTX crash in November 2022, when the Bitcoin price fell below $17,000, but the price began to rise shortly thereafter.
However, Capriole’s Hash Ribbon indicator is designed to identify hashrate and price recovery in the post-halving miner capitulation event, suggesting that the current correction could last until September.
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