August marked a challenging month for Bitcoin miners, with revenues plummeting to their lowest point in nearly a year. According to data from Bitbo, Bitcoin miners generated $827.56 million in August 2024, a significant drop of over 10.5% from July’s $927.35 million. Despite this decline, the figure is still 5% higher than the same period in 2023.
Revenues Continue to Slide from March Peak
The latest figures reveal a steep 57% decline from the revenue peak of March 2024, when miners earned just under $1.93 billion. This peak coincided with Bitcoin reaching an all-time high of over $73,500 on March 13. In contrast, August saw the lowest monthly revenue for miners since September 2023, when they generated $727.79 million, with Bitcoin prices hovering around $25,000.
Despite this, Bitcoin’s price has more than doubled since then, trading at approximately $57,315 as of the latest data.
Decreased Mined Bitcoin and Rising Mining Difficulty
The declining revenues are partly due to a drop in the number of mined Bitcoins, which fell from 14,725 BTC in July to 13,843 BTC in August. Additionally, the increased difficulty in mining Bitcoin has exacerbated the situation. The mining difficulty hit an all-time high of 89.47 trillion in August, up from 86.87 trillion in July, further squeezing miner profits.
This increase in difficulty comes in the wake of April’s Bitcoin halving event, which cut mining rewards by 50%, reducing them to 3.125 BTC. Meanwhile, transaction volumes have also fallen, with the daily confirmed transaction 30-day average decreasing from its year-to-date peak of nearly 631,648 on July 31 to 594,871 by the end of August.
As mining Bitcoin becomes increasingly challenging and less profitable, some miners are pivoting to alternative revenue streams. One notable trend is the shift towards providing computing power to artificial intelligence (AI) projects, with some deals reportedly netting miners billions of dollars.
