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Bitcoin Miners Near $40B Market Cap as Mining Difficulty Set for Fifth Straight Increase

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1 month ago

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Publicly traded bitcoin (BTC) miners are approaching the milestone of an aggregated $40 billion market cap, according to Farside data, doubling in seven months as bitcoin’s price rocketed through multiple record highs to approach six figures for the first time.

Miners’ biggest challenge is revenue. The reward they receive for confirming blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain was cut 50% in April, when their combined market cap was about $20 billion. In this current epoch, only 450 bitcoin are mined a day and fees paid to miners remain at cycle lows, just 10 BTC ($946,000) on Nov. 27 according to Glassnode data.

BTC Fees (Glassnode)

BTC Fees (Glassnode)

That means they either have to diversify revenue streams or produce bitcoin at a cheaper cost than the spot price, currently about $96,000.

That’s a challenge that is about to become more difficult. The mining difficulty, which measures how hard it is to produce the blockchain’s blocks, is expected to increase by a further 3% at some point in the next few days.

Mining difficulty, already firmly above 1 trillion, automatically adjusts every 2016 blocks or roughly every two weeks. The higher the difficulty, the harder — and costlier — for miners to produce a new block.

The heart of the issue is the soaring hashrate, which has held above 700 exahash per second (EH/s) for more than a month. The hashrate is the computational power required to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin.

On a seven-day moving average, the hashrate is currently at 726 EH/s, continuing to put in higher highs and higher lows since mid-year, according to Glassnode data.

Chart showing changes in the hashrate.

Hashrate (Glassnode)

In 2024, many miners have diversified their revenue streams by pivoting into the AI and high-performance computing (HPC) industries, where there is soaring demand for locations that can host the computing power they need.

One example is IREN (IREN), whose shares surged 30% on Wednesday on renewed AI interest.

Other, such as MARA Holdings (MARA), are leveraging their bitcoin stashes and bumping up their bitcoin balance sheet holdings. As of Nov. 27, MARA added a further 703 BTC after selling a 0% $1 billion convertible note to raise the funds. The company now owns a total 34,794 BTC.

The CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF is a proxy for publicly traded miners. Its share price is up 60% year-to-date, which is underperforming bitcoin’s 113%.





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Bitaxe

The Future Of Home Bitcoin Mining Is Bright

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22 hours ago

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January 9, 2025

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Perhaps the best way to decentralize the Bitcoin network is through home mining, and things are trending in the right direction.

Yesterday, Solo Satoshi announced the Bitaxe Touch, the latest device in the world of home bitcoin mining.

This new device will utilize the BM1370 ASIC chip from the Bitmain S21 Pro and will be able to reach a hashrate of up to 1.6 TH/s.

It will also feature a touch screen that displays Bitcoin network stats including the total network hashrate, overall network difficulty and the block height.

Part of what’s fueling innovation like the Bitaxe Touch is the work of Open Source Miners United, a Discord group started by Skot from Bitaxe with over 5,500 members where home mining enthusiasts share ideas and blueprints for new devices.

The group has been set up so that anyone who wants to contribute to the development of the Bitaxe project can do so, and it even offers grants to certain contributors.

The work of such contributors will likely be made easier when Block releases its own ASIC chip, which mining device developers will be able to use in their machines.

And for those of you who aren’t so technically-inclined but who still want to get into the home mining space (and who live in colder climates), you can always purchase a Heatbit, which is essentially a plug-and-play home mining device that also serves as a space heater and an air purifier.

Even with all of these new devices coming to market, I still believe we’re in the early innings of the home bitcoin mining movement and that this space will continue to blossom as more developers and everyday people enter into it.

Indeed, the future of home mining is looking bright.





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America

Buying Greenland Would Be A Huge Boost to US Bitcoin Mining

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1 day ago

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January 9, 2025

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In less than two weeks, the United States will have a new administration in office, but there’s already much debate about President-elect Donald Trump and his policies.

One of the most controversial — his expressed interest in purchasing Greenland for strategic, economic and political reasons.

Trump claims that buying Greenland would be vital to U.S. national security, both for monitoring and defense purposes given its location near Canada and Russia, as well as its energy.

On that note, Greenland is of interest given its vast amount of natural resources in hydropower, wind power, geothermal energy, and rare earth minerals. This is particularly interesting from a Bitcoin perspective, especially given Greenland’s cold climate and lack of Bitcoin mining there currently now presents an entirely new opportunity for the country.

The majority of American Bitcoin mining today is done in the states of Texas, Georgia, New York and North Dakota. Purchasing Greenland could give the United States the opportunity to mine in more favorable conditions and further increase and decentralize the hashrate of Bitcoin.

Image via Muad Dib

This could also be a strategic play for America, considering Russia’s Vladimir Putin had signed a law to legalize Bitcoin mining in August of 2024 and stated in 2022 that the country has “some competitive advantages” in Bitcoin mining given its cold climate.

With Donald Trump’s ongoing support of American Bitcoin miners and expressed interest in leading in this industry before competing countries embrace it — this gives Trump the opportunity to drastically expand U.S. dominance in Bitcoin mining under favorable conditions.

This wouldn’t just be a win for America, but Greenland would also benefit from it as well. Greenland is highly dependent on the Danish government for financial support, and Bitcoin mining could offer an alternative economic avenue. Greenland would then have the full support of the United States government to utilize their natural and untapped resources to mine Bitcoin and get anything else they need support in. Greenland would then be able to create more jobs to build the needed infrastructure to run these operations and bring in additional revenue from the mined bitcoin. And as the price of Bitcoin goes up, that only makes the mined BTC and mining operations all the more valuable. Seems like a win-win to me.

Trump is very eager to acquire Greenland and make it a U.S. territory. If he does, it could be a massive boost for Bitcoin as well.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.





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Bitcoin Miner MARA Lends 16% of Reserves Amid Rising BTC Lending Interest

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5 days ago

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January 5, 2025

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Bitcoin miner MARA has lent 7,377 Bitcoin (BTC) to third parties, constituting 16% of its total reserves of 44,893 BTC. The company has confirmed the arrangement in its latest production update describing the loans as part of a strategy to generate yield and manage operating expenses.

Why Is Bitcoin Miner MARA Lending 17,377 Bitcoin

Bitcoin miner MARA has stated that the 7,377 BTC loans are indeed short-term in nature and the company has entered into these arrangements with “credible counterparties only.” Robert Samuels the Company’s Director of Investor Relations said that the lending programme is to achieve ‘modest single-digit yield’ to enhance the operational sustainability.

”The long-term goal is to achieve a level of return on investment adequate to cover operating costs,” Samuels noted. This is in line with the MARA’s continuous involvement in Bitcoin lending in the whole of 2024 where it earned $3.9m in interest income in Q3 and $4.8m in the first half of the year.

Concurrent with the announcement, Bitcoin price trend had turned positive after reclaiming the $98k resistance and trading at $98,194.

As for the third-party borrowers, the MARA did not reveal their identities, but the firm said that the demand for its lending program is still strong in light of increased market risk aversion. The recent failures of BlockFi and Genesis in 2022 have only raised questions about counterparty risks in the crypto lending market.

MARA’s Expanding Bitcoin Reserves

Bitcoin miner MARA closed the year with a total of 44,893 BTC in its reserve which was a 192.5% growth from the initial 15,174 BTC in the year. The company achieved this growth through two main avenues: mining and acquisitions.

Throughout 2024, MARA mined 9,457 BTC and bought 22,065 BTC at an average rate of $87,205. As of now, total reserves are estimated at about $4.4 billion at the current market price. The firm’s approach to acquisition is consistent with its treasury policy of holding all mined bitcoins and increasing reserves through the capital markets.

Fred Thiel, CEO of MARA, confirmed that the company remains steadfast in its decision of holding Bitcoin in the long-term as a part of the company’s strategic asset.

Boost in Mining Performance

MARA reported an energized hashrate of 53 exahashes per second (EH/s) as of December 31, exceeding its year-end goal. However, its realized hashrate—the effective mining power used for production—stood at 47 EH/s, consistent with November figures.

The company’s year-end hashrate performance represented a 15% increase compared to earlier in the year. Mining operations remain central to MARA’s growth, as the firm continues to scale its infrastructure to keep pace with the competitive and energy-intensive Bitcoin mining industry.

Bitcoin miner MARA’s CEO Fred Thiel concurrently shared his optimism about Bitcoin’s future, predicting that the cryptocurrency could reach $200,000 by the end of 2025. Speaking to FOX Business, Thiel emphasized the role of institutional adoption and regulatory changes as key drivers for this anticipated growth.

Thiel encouraged retail investors to consider Bitcoin as a long-term asset, advocating for consistent, small-scale investments.

“My recommendation is to put just a little away every month in Bitcoin and forget about it,” he said.

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Kelvin Munene Murithi

Kelvin is a distinguished writer with expertise in crypto and finance, holding a Bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science. Known for his incisive analysis and insightful content, he possesses a strong command of English and excels in conducting thorough research and delivering timely cryptocurrency market updates.

Disclaimer: The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.





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