Cryptocurrency miners are losing a growing amount of money on the Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) they produce.
Ongoing volatility and declining prices mean that crypto miners such as Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: $RIOT), MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: $MARA), and Hut 8 (NASDAQ: $HUT) are now losing $19,000 U.S. on each BTC they mint.
Checkonchain estimates that the average production costs for one Bitcoin currently stands at $88,000 U.S.
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With Bitcoin trading at an average price of $69,000 U.S. in March, miners are losing $19,000 U.S. on each BTC that’s produced through a series of complex mathematical equations.
The average miner is operating at a 21% loss on every Bitcoin that’s minted, says Checkonchain.
The cost squeeze has been worsening since Bitcoin began falling from an all-time high of $126,000 U.S. reached last October.
Spiking oil and gas prices have also increased the costs of mining Bitcoin, which relies on large banks of energy-intensive computers.
Hashprice, the metric that tracks expected miner revenue per unit of computing power, is now at $33.30 U.S. per petahash per second per day, near an all-time low of $28 U.S.
When miners can't cover their costs, they typically sell Bitcoin to fund their operations. That selling adds pressure to a market grappling with 43% of total supply sitting at a loss.
Many publicly traded miners such as Riot Platforms and Hut 8 are responding by diversifying into artificial intelligence (A.I.) and high-performance computing (HPC) data centres.
RIOT, MARA and HUT stock are each down more than 5% this year.