Bitcoin miners see worst revenues in 11 months as difficulty climbs

Bitcoin miners in August had the worst month of revenue all year and the lowest revenue month since September 2023.
Bitcoin miners in August had the worst month of revenue all year and the lowest revenue month since September 2023.

Bitcoin miners just recorded their lowest revenue-generating month since September 2023, as the number of coins mined fell in August. 

Miner revenue reached $827.56 million in August, dropping over 10.5% from July’s $927.35 million, but it was up 5% from August 2023, Bitbo data shows.

The August figure is a 57% fall from 2024’s March peak of just under $1.93 billion — the same month Bitcoin (BTC) hit its all-time high of over $73,500 on March 13.

It’s the worst revenue month for Bitcoin miners since September 2023, when they earned $727.79 million. Bitcoin hovered around $25,000 throughout the month. 

However, its price has since more than doubled to trade at $57,315 at the time of writing. 

Bitcoin miner monthly revenues have continued to fall throughout 2024 after a March peak. Source: Bitbo

Meanwhile, the number of mined Bitcoin for the month slightly dropped from around 14,725 BTC mined in July to 13,843 BTC in August.

The revenue drop comes as miners were squeezed by falling transaction volumes and a hike in the difficulty of mining BTC, which accelerated after April’s Bitcoin halving cut block rewards by 50% to 3.125 BTC.

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The median fees that made up the percentage of a block reward were 2% over August, and the daily confirmed transaction 30-day average hit a year-to-date peak on July 31 of nearly 631,648 before retracing to 594,871 by Aug. 31, according to Bitbo and Blockchain.com data. 

The level of mining difficulty has also continued to climb, hitting an all-time peak of 89.47 trillion in August, up from 86.87 trillion in July.

The increased difficulty and reduced profitability of mining Bitcoin have seen some miners turn to giving computing power to artificial intelligence, with some deals netting miners billions of dollars.

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