April Is Going To Hurt Bitcoin Miners... And Here's Why?

Bitcoin mining has never been a walk in the park, but lately, it has become a real obstacle course. The sector must juggle a delicate equation: a hashprice that remains stagnant, rising difficulty, and transaction fees that melt away like snow in the sun. The result? Several miners will soon have to put the key under the doormat…

Bitcoin mining: a stable hashprice, but at what cost?

This may be the paradox of the moment: the bitcoin hashprice, this compass that indicates what miners earn for each petahash per second (PH/s), remains stuck around $48. Yet, the network difficulty – in other words, the complexity of the calculations to be solved to validate a block – jumped by 1.4%, reaching 113.76 trillion on March 23. In short, we are rowing harder for the same salary.

And that’s where it gets tricky for bitcoin miners who do not have top-of-the-line machines. The Antminer S19 XP or S19 Pro, once the stars of the hashrate, are now seeing their revenues collapse to $0.088 and $0.067 per kilowatt-hour. One could say that with energy costs skyrocketing everywhere, some must start looking at their equipment with a sad eye (or even consider selling it for parts…).

Transaction fees: the major absentees of the moment

Another unpleasant surprise: transaction fees, which now represent only 1.12% of total block rewards. We haven’t seen this since January 2022! Consequently, bitcoin miners can no longer rely too much on these little bonuses to round out their end-of-block pay. The dependence on fixed rewards (which is set to decrease with the upcoming halving) thus becomes total.

As if it weren’t complicated enough, network difficulty could still increase by 16.05% in the next adjustment scheduled for April 4, 2025. We’re talking about a rise to 132.02 trillion. If this projection turns out to be accurate, bitcoin miners may have to push even harder on the pedal to move… at a crawl.

In this context, profitability becomes a balancing act. Energy optimization, migration to less expensive regions, or investment in top-notch equipment: the options are on the table, but none are simple. Bitcoin mining, more than ever, requires solid nerves, sharp strategy… and perhaps a touch of faith in the hashrate.