By George WardAccording to recent data from Glassnode, Bitcoin miners have garnered profits of approximately $50 billion since the creation of the asset thirteen years ago. The data suggest that the profits were a combination of block reward subsidies and transaction fees.
Bitcoin Mining Brings In Over $50 Billion Revenue
As the discussion around Bitcoin miner expenses and their vulnerability to price drops continues, recent data indicates that miners have been profitable over the long run. Glassnode’s analysis shows that miners have earned a total income of $50.2 billion, nearly 40% higher than their estimated expenses of $36.6 billion.
To obtain these figures, the researchers utilized two metrics, namely Thermocap and transaction fees. Thermocap represents the sum of issuance multiplied by the spot price and all-time generated fee revenue.
In contrast, the much-talked-about production cost represents the cost of producing the required computational power for mining. Furthermore, Glassnode released a detailed report in March outlining the intricacies involved in their calculations and arrived at a profit margin of 37%.
According to the report, the Thermocap and Transaction Fees are viewed as the revenue realized by miners. At the same time, the Difficulty Production Cost is measured as the combined expense of mining inputs.
Nevertheless, the findings eased concerns that a decrease in the BTC/USD price could lead to widespread capitulation within the mining sector, which continues to expand. The report’s argument is backed by the Bitcoin network’s fundamentals, as evidenced by the continual increase in difficulty and hash rate, which reached record highs in 2023.
According to the latest projections, this week’s difficulty adjustment for Bitcoin is anticipated to be the first negative adjustment since mid-February 2023. Meanwhile, the rapid entry of unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) due to ordinals has made on-chain transactions less attractive.
In May, Glassnode data revealed a significant surge in created UTXOs, reaching their highest point since 2015. Consequently, there was a corresponding increase in fees.
Saylor Reveals MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Plan
Michael Saylor, the founder of MicroStrategy Inc, the US-based company specializing in business intelligence and analytics, has publicly announced the firm’s intentions regarding its Bitcoin holdings. In a recent interview, the MicroStrategy founder mentioned that his software company experienced substantial growth in the last quarter.
Hence, it had the funds necessary to pay off debts and purchase more Bitcoin. Regarding the losses incurred on their 146,000 BTC holdings, Saylor emphasized that holding onto the asset and enduring its volatility is the primary strategy for profiting from Bitcoin’s popularity.
He also mentioned that MicroStrategy is a long-term holder of Bitcoin and that all stakeholders are united with this interest in the asset. Recognized as one of the most prominent Bitcoin proponents, Saylor guided his company to begin collecting the leading crypto asset in August 2020.
Following its most recent acquisition, MicroStrategy holds the largest BTC of any publicly traded non-crypto-native firm on Wall Street compared to any other company. As stated by Saylor, the widespread acceptance of Bitcoin results from declining confidence in fiat currencies globally.
Furthermore, Saylor opines that the glamour associated with traditional banking and competing assets such as stocks have reduced over time. Reflecting on the factors that have recently accelerated Bitcoin’s adoption, Saylor reaffirmed the rising uneasiness of inflation as a significant reason.
More importantly, he stated that Bitcoin is not a currency derivative subject to depreciation but has inherent digital scarcity. Saylor’s remarks indicate that Bitcoin’s high volatility is not a hindrance for him or his company to shift from supporting BTC in the present and the foreseeable future.
In a related development, the crypto market was sent into a fever pitch on Tuesday after the price of BTC on the Bitfinex perpetual swap market briefly spiked to over $56,000. However, the price error has since been corrected.
The leading digital asset trades at $28,253 and is up 0.5%, according to current Coingecko data.