Since 2013, Bitcoin miners have seen a twenty-fold increase in mining revenue.
According to data from Statista global bitcoin mining revenue breached the $5 billion mark in 2019—marking a near 20 times increase in just five years. But will the uptrend continue following the Bitcoin halving?
Bitcoin mining revenue has kept growing nearly every year. In 2013, the mining revenue worldwide stood at $260 million. One year on, in 2014, the figure grew to $700 million, the very same year that mining firm BitFury raised 20 million for a new ASIC mining chip.
By the time 2017 rolled around, industry revenue reached $3.19 billion—one year after the Bitcoin halving in 2016. Despite the monolithic crash in early 2018, the industry went on to see an even bigger $5.26 billion in revenue.
Yet with the Bitcoin halving just around the corner—and prices largely down across the board—there could be a change afoot.
In roughly 42 days, Bitcoin will half for the third time. This will reduce the block reward from 12.5 BTC per block mined to just 6.25 BTC. So, each miner will see their revenue cut in half, at least initially. And that’s on top of the prices having recently halved—causing further worries for miners.
As Decrypt reported, miners are already shutting up shop. Unprofitable miners in China, who were betting big on a price bullrun, have had to close down and sell their machines. The Bitcoin hashrate—computing power of all miners put together—has dropped nearly in half from its 2020 peak.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if the mining revenue halved too.