Here’s why ‘safe’ Bitcoin miners sold big right before the halving

    Miners sold their BTCs ahead of the halving
    Percentage of miners’ revenue derived from transaction fees rose too

The amount of Bitcoin (BTC) held by miners reached a 12-month low prior to the recent halving, as reported by IntoTheBlock. This might indicate that miners had sold off their coins ahead of the halving taking place.

During Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event, the amount of Bitcoins held by miners has reached a 12-year low. This finding suggests that miners have been offloading more Bitcoins than they’ve been mining in the lead-up to the halving.

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) April 19, 2024

Before their rewards were reduced, Bitcoin miners were selling off large quantities of coins at an accelerated rate, as evidenced by the significant increase in the amount of coins moving from mining operations to exchanges.

The “Miner to Exchange Flow” indicator indicates the volume of Bitcoin moving from miners to exchanges. An increase in this flow suggests that miners are selling more Bitcoin than they’re mining, which is commonly seen as a signal that miners hold bearish views on Bitcoin’s price.

Based on CryptoQuant’s information, on the 19th of April, Bitcoin miners transferred 366 BTC, equivalent to around $23.45 million at present market rates, to cryptocurrency exchanges. This was a significant increase from the 126 BTC worth approximately $7.8 million that were moved to exchanges by miners on the previous day, representing an uptick of about 128%.

In my current composition, the combined balance of Bitcoin in the digital wallets of associated miners came up to 1.81 million BTC.

Miners are the “winners”

Based on information from the Bitcoin transaction explorer mempool.space, Block 840,000, which is the halving block, collected approximately 40.7 Bitcoins, equivalent to around $2.5 million in fees, as users hurried to process new token transactions on the network.

Moreover, Messari’s data indicates that as transaction fees increase, so does the percentage of miner earnings from fees. Currently, this stands at 15%, marking a 50% jump within just the past 24 hours based on their on-chain information.

Currently, Bitcoin was priced at $64,262 based on a slight 3% increase over the past day, as indicated by CoinMarketCap’s data.

During that timeframe, the average daily trading volume dropped by 8%. This decrease could be a sign of an impending price decrease in the near future as the market starts to show signs of fatigue.

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2024-04-20 22:15