Amid the excitement encompassing the approval of Bitcoin Spot Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), BTC miners have been spotted carrying out an aggressive selling spree leaving the community to ponder on the impact of the sell-off.

Bitcoin Miners Engage In Selling Spree

Well-known cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez shared this information with the community on the social media network X (formerly Twitter), noting a “substantial increase in selling activity” from Bitcoin miners lately.

According to data shared by Ali, miners have sold about 10,600 Bitcoin in less than 24 hours. This was valued at an estimated $455.8 million as of the time of the report.

The recent increase in sales by the Bitcoin miners indicates a responsive market. In addition, the sizable amount involved signifies an impactful development in the cryptocurrency landscape.

Several reasons could be traced back to the massive selling spree by these miners. One potential reason could be attributed to the decline in the Bitcoin hash rate, which generally affects the profitability of miners.

BTC miners must make several guesses at a challenging mathematical problem in order to process transactions. A greater hash rate indicates that the miners are carrying out more guesses, suggesting more effort to secure the network. 

The crypto asset’s hash rate saw a notable decrease of 25% during the last weekend. This raises speculations regarding the security of BTC’s network ahead of the much-awaited “Halving.”

It was reported that the total real-time rate from all mining pools decreased from 570 exahashes per second (EH/s) to as low as 425 EH/s. However, the hash rate is currently sitting at 550 exahashes per second (EH/s).

The reduction occurred due to the restrictions placed on businesses’ use of electricity by ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) because of unfavorable cold weather.

Interest In BTC Mining From Institutions

Top financial companies have been demonstrating interest in Bitcoin mining companies for a while now. Various financial institutions have made significant investments, which have also helped the mining industries. 

Even those who have historically opposed Bitcoin or have been hostile to it have invested millions of dollars in the industry throughout 2023.

Since August 2023, Blackrock has been a significant stakeholder in four of the five biggest mining companies. The asset manager increased its level of involvement with these firms only during the second half of last year.

As of the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $42,710, indicating an over 7% decrease in the past seven days. Its market cap is up slightly by 0.02% in the past 24 hours, while its trading volume is down by 17.17%.

Featured image from iStock, chart by Tradingview.com

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On-chain data shows that Bitcoin miners have been expanding their reserves recently, a sign that could be bullish for the asset’s price.

Bitcoin Miner Reserve Has Been Trending Up Recently

As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, BTC miners have been accumulating during the past 48 days. The indicator of interest here is the “miner reserve,” which measures the total amount of Bitcoin that all miners are holding in their wallets right now.

Related Reading: These Bitcoin Metrics Are At Important Retests, Will Bullish Trend Prevail?

When the value of this metric goes down, it means that the miners are withdrawing coins from their wallets currently. Generally, these chain validators only transfer coins out of their reserve whenever they want to sell them, so this kind of trend can have bearish implications for the price.

On the other hand, the indicator increasing in value implies the miners are adding a net amount of BTC to their wallets. Such a trend can be a sign that these investors are accumulating at the moment, and hence, can be bullish for the cryptocurrency.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin miner reserve over the last couple of months:

The value of the metric has been steadily going up in recent days | Source: CryptoQuant

As shown in the above graph, the Bitcoin miner reserve had observed a large rise back in May, but soon after this increase, this cohort started selling as the asset’s price continued to show struggle.

After the rally had taken place in June, however, the indicator’s value had stabilized, meaning that these investors were selling the same amount as they were adding to their holdings.

In the last few weeks, this sideways trend has slowly turned into an uptrend, as the miners have been gradually expanding their reserves. In the past 48 days, these chain validators have added a total of around 4,060 BTC to their holdings.

This amount is worth around $118 million at the current exchange rate, which isn’t a ton given the scale of the total miner reserve, but it’s still nonetheless a positive sign that the miners have been accumulating despite the cryptocurrency’s price observing some decline recently.

A notable portion of this latest accumulation by the miners has come from one mining pool, AntPool, as the below chart displays.

Looks like miners belonging to this pool have been accumulating | Source: CryptoQuant

In the past 52 days, the AntPool Bitcoin mining pool has added a total of about 1,020 BTC to their reserves, which is more than 25% of the total accumulation that all the miners have participated in during this period.

The quant has also attached the data for the exchange flows (as well the normal outflows/inflow) for this mining pool. Earlier, there was some concern around the market that these miners may have been selling as they were depositing to exchanges, but as it turned out, this cohort was merely transferring their coins back and forth from these platforms.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $29,100, up 1% in the last week.

BTC has been moving sideways recently | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from iStock.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com