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

The
bitcoin
hashrate
is
still
soaring
as
mining
difficulty
looks
to
increase
for
a
fifth
consecutive
time.

Updated
Nov
28,
2024,
12:27 p.m.

Published
Nov
28,
2024,
12:26 p.m.

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.

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.

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%.