Bitcoin miners see worst revenues in 11 months as difficulty climbs

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

Miners revenue reached $827.56 million last month, dropping over 10.5% from July’s $927.35 million, but 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 where Bitcoin (BTC) hit its all-time high of over $73,500 on March 13.

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

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

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

The revenue drop comes as miners were squeezed by falling transaction volumes and a hike in the difficulty of mining the cryptocurrency, accelerated after April’s Bitcoin halving which saw rewards cut 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, per Bitbo and Blockchain.com data. 

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

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

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