Bitcoin ($BTC.X) miners are in a tough spot.
Bitcoin requires a metric crap ton of energy to mine. So if power is cheap and demand for Bitcoin remains stable, miners can turn a profit.
But the situation for miners today is ugly. Miners are dealing with a steep drop in demand and rising energy costs. As the difficulty of mining increases, so do the energy costs.
On Sunday, Bitcoin moved to a new all-time for its difficulty rating. The result is an unattractive average cost to mine Bitcoin: $19,662.
With Bitcoin barely holding onto the $16,000 value area, miners are expected to stop or pull back their activity and be forced to sell their Bitcoin instead of hodling.
2022 has seen a good amount of consolidation in the Bitcoin mining space and some expansions in operations for others.
For example, in September 2022, CleanSpark purchased roughly 10,000 new miners. In addition, in October 2022, crypto miner Crusoe Energy bought Great American Mining.
The problems facing Bitcoin miners are almost all directly related to pessimism in the broader crypto market caused by failed entities like Celsius and FTX. ⚒️