Green Shoots of Recovery Sprout for Bitcoin Miners – Report

Tim Alper
Last updated: | 3 min read

After one of the most turbulent periods in bitcoin (BTC) mining history, miners have been handed a timely boost – with reports of recovery in hash-rate and signs that some of the BTC miners forced out of Mainland China earlier this summer are resuming their activities elsewhere in the world.

Source: Adobe Stock / surachat.

According to Glassnode’s latest on-chain report, a “Great Migration” away from China is “continuing,” with miners “transitioning out of China.” But some of these moves now appear to be complete, as “we have started to see a recovery in hash-rate from the lows set in July,” the report’s authors noted.

They claimed that hash-rate rose to a high of about 180 EH/s in May, after which rates dropped by a staggering 50% – proving that “the magnitude of affected miners” was “roughly half the network.”

But getting back online appears to have been a priority for migrating miners, as, during that past two months, Glassnode wrote that hash-rate “has increased by around 25% from the lows,” which appears to show that “hash-rate equivalent to around 12.5% of the affected miners have come back online.”

Per BitInfoCharts.com, Bitcoin 7-day moving average hashrate is up more than 41% since it’s low in early July, but is still far from its all-time high hit in May.

Bitcoin 7-day moving average hashrate. Source: BitInfoCharts.com

Difficult has also adjusted, also as a result of the aforementioned “Great Migration” – as well as the ongoing ripple effects of last year’s halving event.

The authors wrote that “miners who remained online have now seen their BTC income grow by 57% per hash to around BTC 8.8/EH.”

And there was yet more cause for cheer, as the net balance position of miners has continued on an upward trend over the past two months, the authors explained, noting:

“The net growth of miner balances has now hit BTC +5,000/month, which demonstrates a net reduction in compulsory sell-side pressure sourced from miners.”

Meanwhile, with BTC prices on the rise again, the authors noted that “a total of 19.2% of the circulating coin supply has returned to profit.” This, they added, “means that around BTC 3.6 million were last spent, and thus have an on-chain cost basis in this price range.”

And this led the authors to deduce that a “very significant volume of BTC has been accumulated in this price range.” They added that the “jump” was much larger in profitable supply change than was the case in January this year when BTC prices found themselves in a similar USD 30,000-USD 40,000 range.

This, they claimed means that “on-net” some 1.4m “additional BTC have been revalued within this price range” since the start of the year.

Per CoinGecko data at the time of writing, is trading at about USD 45,800. The token is down 3.1% on the past 24 hours and down just under a percentage point at 0.9% on the past week.

At 9:24 UTC Tuesday morning, BTC is trading at USD 46,344. It’s up 1.5% in a day, and is unchanged in a week. Overall, it appreciated 47% in a month and 290% in a year.

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Learn more:
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Jumps Again As More Miners Return to Work
BTC Mining Migration, Challenges & Forecasts for the Post-crackdown Industry

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