The Bitcoin halving is just under 49 days away and many in the community are very fearful about how miners may react post the much-anticipated event.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was valued at around $6600, a price level which is a significant turnaround from its valuation on 12 March, a day when Bitcoin crashed shockingly. That said, previously, it had been reported that Bitcoin had to be worth above $7200 for miners to be profitable.
While concerns creep in about miners hashing their power out and following a period of capitulation, the current network data suggests a very different state of things.
Source: blockchain
Bitcoin’s hashrate recorded a significant drop down to 75 TH/s on 25 March, just a day after recording a surge above 100 TH/s.
However, according to an executive at Token Analyst, the fall in the network’s hashrate was not due to miners capitulating. The chart below indicates that in spite of a declining hash rate, the amount of Bitcoin held by miners remained consistent, and is in fact, on its latest high since January 2020. Here, the miners’ wallet balances were determined via probabilistic heuristics.
Source: Twitter
Source: Twitter
Additional stats also revealed that Bitcoin balances with top mining pools hardly noted any problematic changes. The Bitcoin balance change on Btc.com was a little alarming, but other exchanges remained unaffected.
On observing the hashrate of these miners, most of these major mining pools did not experience any decline on their individual networks, with Bitfury, BTC-Top, 1thash, and via BTC being the only ones to record a minor dip.
Source: Twitter
Bitcoin pulling their weight amidst market volatility
It is possible that the hashrate on individual mining pools hasn’t dropped since they didn’t want to hash out before the halving event. It can thus be suggested that miners are aware of a price dump post-halving, which has been the case historically over the past two halvings.
Even after the drop on 17 March, it was identified that Bitcoin Miners Energy Ratio registered a significant influx of energy into the network, in order to increase the hashrate.
Although these market signs are positive and fairly bullish, the real picture will only be seen post-halving, a time when the block rewards will be slashed and miners’ profitability is limited.
