Miners sold 14K Bitcoin worth $300M on July 15, largest dump since January News โธ Bear Market
Miners sold 14K Bitcoin worth $300M on July 15, largest dump since January
Data from CryptoQuant shows that Bitcoin worth over $300 million was sold by miners within a 24 hour period on July 15.
2 min read
Updated: Jul. 19, 2022 at 1:12 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Numbers from blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant showed that miners sold 14,000 Bitcoin (BTC) worth roughly $300 million on July 15, the largest amount sold since January.
A sell-off trend among miners started in early June, and the amount sold has been growing.
Energy problem
Miners are mostly forced to sell because the bearish Bitcoin prices don’t compensate for the energy spent mining.
According to numbers, all mining equipment produced before 2019 is not profitable as long as Bitcoin remains around $20,000. In addition, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has also increased energy prices, which is not helpful to the miners.
A recent study showed that public mining companies sold 30% of their Bitcoin reserves in the first four months of 2022 to survive the bear market.
Compass Mining and Core Scientific are only two examples of mining companies that had to sell out to pay their electricity bills. Core Scientific’s CEO Mike Levitt spoke for all the miners and told CNBC:
โWe mine and earn or produce bitcoin, but our costs, expenses, and liabilities are in dollars. We would all be cheering loudly if bitcoin were to get back to $35,000, $40,000. There is no doubt about that,โ
Core Scientific is one of the largest crypto mining companies in the U.S. The company sold 7,200 Bitcoin for $23,000 each in June, making up almost all its Bitcoin reserves.
Energy costs of mining operations also affected some countries that were bullish on mining. Kazakhstanย andย Sweden are the most recent examples of countries that chose to re-direct the power devoted to mining operations towards other industries.
New mining technology
Samsung is one of the companies that addressed mining’s energy problem. The tech giant recently announced the launch of its new 3-nanometer mining chip, which will be 45% more energy efficient.
The company started working on the chip in late 2021 and is expected to launch it by year-end. Moreover, Samsung also said that it is working on aย 2-nanometer chip, which will be even more energy efficient. Currently, the best mining hardware in the market is the Antminer S19X which has a 5-nanometer chip.
Posted In: Bear Market, Mining
Author 
Zeynep Geylan
Zeynep is an academic who turned to crypto in 2018. Originating in social sciences, she is especially interested in the social impact of blockchain and cryptocurrencies and strongly believes in their transmuting power.
