As a straight result of falling Bitcoin (BTC) prices, total revenue made by miners in transaction fees and mining rewards dropped to its one-year lows at nearly $15 million on July 4. Though, a synchronized fall in graphic cards or GPU prices is set to help miners offset their operational costs amid a continuing bear market. The dramatic drop in GPU prices opened up a small window of opportunity for small-time miners to procure a piece of more powerful and efficient mining equipment.
Bitcoin mining revenue fell 79.6% over a period of 9 months, ever since reaching an all-time high of $74.4 million on Oct. 25, 2021. Additionally, a global chip shortage and the coronavirus pandemic shot up prices of the most important part of a mining rig — the graphics processing unit (GPU) — further impacting the miners’ bottom line.
With card manufacturers restarting operations across the world, GPU prices have seen a huge deterioration with some cards selling for below MSRPs. Only in May, did GPU prices fall over 15% on average as supply surpassed the market demand. Furthermore, the recent influx in GPUs has forced sellers on the secondary markets to bring down their excessive prices on used mining rigs.
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported that quite a lot of public Bitcoin miners are well-positioned to endure the prolonged bear market as the low revenue continues to sustain the operational costs of the mining facilities.
Besides, the meteoric drop in GPU prices opened up a small window of opportunity for small-time miners to obtain a piece of more powerful and efficient mining equipment. Attached with lower hash rate requirements of 203.6 exa hashes per second, miners now need lower computing power to successfully mine a block on the Bitcoin blockchain.
In spite of the apparent drop in mining revenue, Marathon Digital Holdings revealed to continue stacking BTC via mining although being “fairly well insulated and well-positioned.”
Charlie Schumacher, VP of corporate communications at Marathon Digital, describes the insights on their overall operations while talking to Cointelegraph,
“For reference, in Q1 2022, our cost to produce a Bitcoin was approximately $6,200. We also have fixed pricing for power, so we are not subject to changes in the energy markets.”
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