GM. Today’s headlines:
- Bitcoin drops down to $58,000 after a weekend slump.
- A solo Bitcoin miner gets $200,000 worth of Bitcoin mining a block.
- Spot Bitcoin ETF’s record a monthly loss.
Bitcoin is now trading below $60,000 after sluggish price performance over the past week.
The price of $BTC is down nearly 10% in a week of steady declines. Currently down -9.56% versus this same time last week.
Figure 1: Bitcoin past week price performance.
While this may feel concerning to some in the short term, zooming out Bitcoin price is still up +120% over the past year.
Figure 2: Bitcoin's past 12-month performance.
News You Need to Know
- Spot Bitcoin ETF’s record a monthly loss.
- Nayib Bukele says Bitcoin a ‘net positive’ for El Salvador and holds $400M of Bitcoin in public wallet.
- A solo Bitcoin miner beats the odds to grab $200,000 mining a recent block.
- OKX now fully licensed to operate as a trading exchange in Singapore.
The Big Story
Solo miner beats the odds to mine block and earn $200,000 in Bitcoin
The world of Bitcoin mining is increasingly dominated by the strongest, largest players in the industry. The likes of Marathon Digital, Foundry, and Riot. This means it is increasingly difficult for small independent miners to successfully mine blocks.
However, that is precisely what happened on Block 858,978 on the 29th August 2024.
Figure 3: A solo miner operating through Solo CK pool mines block 858978.
This miner contributed just 0.0054% of the network hashrate. A tiny fraction of the total network hashrate available but was still able to mine the block.
In hashes terms, this equates to around 38 peta hashes per second. This would still require the miner to have a substantial mining operation (+100 machines) and likely using newer models of mining equipment.
The wider challenges for Bitcoin miners over time can be seen by the Bitcoin Hashrate chart which shows the parabolic increase in hashrate over recent years as the industry becomes increasingly competitive.
Figure 4: Bitcoin Mining Hashrate.
Currently, the hashrate is over 600 million TeraHash per second.
As of the most recent Bitcoin halving, which occurred on April 24, 2024, the block reward for Bitcoin miners is now just 3.125 BTC per block.
This halving event reduced the reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, in line with Bitcoin's protocol, which halves the block reward approximately every four years (or every 210,000 blocks) to control the supply of new bitcoins and make them increasingly scarce over time.
Figure 5: Bitcoin block reward.
With block rewards lower than they have been historically and hash rates increasing, the Bitcoin mining industry shows no sign of slowing down the process of being one of the most efficient markets in the world where the strongest survive. This makes the recent feat by this relatively small miner all the more impressive.
Key Chart
Each week, our BM Pro Analysts hand-pick a must-see chart for you. This week:
Number of Addresses with Balance Greater Than 1 BTC
Figure 6: Bitcoin Addresses with balance > 1 BTC
What it is
- This chart tracks the number of Bitcoin addresses that hold more than 1 BTC, reflecting how many holders have accumulated at least one full bitcoin.
- It can be used as an indicator of wealth distribution and long-term holding patterns among Bitcoin users.
Why this matters
- Adoption Indicator: A growing number of addresses with more than 1 BTC can suggest increasing confidence in Bitcoin as a store of value.
- However, this can become more challenging over time as the price of Bitcoin increases and becomes out of reach for many individuals to accumulate a whole bitcoin.
What's happening now
- Recent Growth has stalled, likely for a couple of critical reasons. First is the launch of Bitcoin ETF’s earlier in the year, where investors can now purchase bitcoin through an ETF product and, therefore, do not need to self-custody themselves using their own individual Bitcoin addresses.
- Another factor is the sideways price action that Bitcoin has experienced in recent months. This lack of ‘exciting’ price activity is not acting as a catalyst to bring in new users.
You can track this metric and other address size holding charts here.
The Bitcoin Magazine Pro Team.