Bitcoin Miners Are Crying Into Their Beer as Halving Slices Rewards—Here’s Why

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Despite BTC’s spot price flirting with $95,000 (no biggie, just another day at the crypto casino), miners aren’t exactly popping champagne corks. Revenue? Not keeping up. Profits? Think “shrinking jeans after hot wash.” Ouch. The stats are blaring like a car alarm at 3am: margins are tightening, and the only thing getting fat is everyone’s stress level.

Declining Fee Contribution 🙄

Oh, transaction fees! Once the golden goose, now more like a scraggly chicken. Post-halving, transaction fees make up a pitiful 1.48% of block rewards—the lowest since early 2023. Apparently, people have better things to do than clog the blockchain with transactions, and demand for on-chain block space is withering faster than my New Year’s resolutions.

There was a fleeting moment of glory—remember the Runes launch and Ordinals hype? Average fees danced atop $127 per transaction in April 2024 (almost enough to buy a coffee in downtown San Francisco). But, like all good parties, this one ended with fees crashing to under $2. Miners’ transaction-based paychecks? More unsustainable than my diet.

Hashprice: The Wallflower at the Price Rally 💃🕺

Hashprice, a.k.a., what miners actually pocket per petahash per second (PH/s), stubbornly refuses to join the bull market party. By late April 2025, it’s flatlining at $48.9 per PH/s/day, sulking in a corner while Bitcoin’s spot price shimmies and shines. Bull markets past would have hashprice twirling—now? Nada.

So miners are left holding the (electric) bill. Rigs running at 25–38 J/TH are making, wait for it, about $0.06 per kWh—handily under the U.S. grid’s average of $0.08. Translation: they’re paying for the privilege of mining. No money for avocado toast, let alone upgrades. Smaller miners: time to find another hobby?

The Big Existential Dread: Bitcoin Security 😱

With fees shrinking and hashprice stuck in existential limbo, people are side-eyeing Bitcoin’s long-term security. Block rewards will keep halving every four years, which means fees are supposed to pick up the slack. Spoiler: they’re not. Meanwhile, Lightning Network is out there smugly serving 650 million users indirectly, and on-chain action is giving very “meh” energy.

For miners, “incentives” have gone from “rock star” to “broke busker.” Future survival might hinge on fresh layer 2 wizardry, a spicier fee market, or (gasp!) some protocol shake-up. Stay tuned—in Bitcoin, nothing is ever boring, or easy on the nerves.

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2025-05-02 02:10