Bitcoin Mining Performance Post-Halving: Minimal Revenue Drop-off Highlights Sector’s Resilience
Following the fourth Bitcoin halving last month, major Bitcoin mining companies have started to reveal their performance metrics, illustrating minimal but noticeable impacts from the event on the mining landscape.
Post-Halving Bitcoin Mining: Sustaining Strong Performance
CleanSpark, the second-largest Bitcoin miner by market capitalization at $3.92 billion, disclosed in their monthly investor report that they mined 721 Bitcoin in April, down from 806 in March. Despite this slight decrease, CleanSpark has remained one of the top-performing Bitcoin mining stocks this year, with an impressive 60% increase in stock value. This performance is noteworthy especially considering the pre-halving market jitters that negatively affected other mining stocks.
CleanSpark’s efficiency in mining more Bitcoin with a lower active hash rate of 17 exahashes per second (EH/s) in April stands out. In contrast, Marathon Digital, the largest Bitcoin miner with a market cap of $5.64 billion, mined 850 Bitcoin last month despite having a higher active hash rate of 29.9 EH/s. Marathon’s operational update indicated an average operational hash rate of only 21.1 EH/s, suggesting not all available mining machines were operational.
Riot Platforms demonstrated even less efficiency, mining just 375 Bitcoin at an active hash rate of 12.5 EH/s and an average hash rate of 8.8 EH/s. Riot’s stock has seen one of the largest declines from early January to the halving on April 19, with nearly no recovery post-halving, resulting in a 30% decrease year-to-date.
Additional Revenues from Rune Protocol and Transaction Fees
Despite the halving being in effect for only about one-third of the month, several Bitcoin miners reported that their Bitcoin (BTC) revenue dropped less than 15%. Iris Energy, based in British Columbia, saw a slight increase in their mining output thanks to an increased operational hash rate.
A notable boost in revenue for some miners came from the launch of the Rune protocol, coinciding with the halving. Rune introduces a new standard for minting tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, temporarily pushing fees above $150 per transaction as traders rushed to mint tokens under the new standard.
Marathon reported that transaction fees made up 16% of their revenue last month. CleanSpark noted that on one day in April, they earned 48.3 BTC in transaction fees, nearly double their monthly average.
Insightful Conclusion
This resilient performance among Bitcoin miners post-halving, coupled with strategic adjustments in operational efficiency and the opportunistic utilization of the Rune protocol, highlights the sector’s adaptability. As the landscape evolves, these miners are not just surviving; they’re strategically thriving, ready for the next phases of cryptocurrency market dynamics.
