David Canellis

The price of bitcoin continues to chop ahead of the upcoming halving event.



Bitcoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">BTC</a>) sat just above $43,000 early Monday morning, down 2.5% over the year to date but ahead by half across the past six months.



Bitcoin’s price is practically the same as it was at the start of December, although in between it reached as high as $49,000 as the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/wealth-managers-bitcoin-etfs">spot ETFs launched on US exchanges</a> last month.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/no-bull-bear-bitcoin-kangaroo-market">No bull: Bitcoin has been in a kangaroo market for nearly a whole year</a>



January was still a green candle — but only just — converting to its fifth consecutive positive monthly close.



Bitcoin is now on its longest monthly winning streak since the previous bull market, when it notched six green monthly candles in a row between October 2020 and March 2021. 



Bitcoin rallied from under $11,000 to almost $62,000 in that time.



That run started around five months after Bitcoin’s previous halving, which reduced miners’ block rewards from 12.5 BTC ($539,100) to 6.25 BTC ($269,550). Now that figure is to be slashed to 3.125 BTC ($134,900).



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Bitcoin lore has it that halvings are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-halvings-bull-market">precursors to enormous bull runs</a>, on account of the all-time highs set more than a year after each of the past three.



As far as sample sizes go, three events is hardly enough to base any sort of statistical analysis. Bitcoin has however <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tracking-bitcoin-price-to-halving">continued to track ahead</a> of run-ups to the previous two halvings.



Nailing down the exact date for the halving is difficult, but comparing price action starting 200 days out from each event shows bitcoin is up around 52% with about 75 days to go.



At the same point before the 2016 and 2020 halvings, bitcoin had gained 5.5% and 17.5%, respectively.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-halving-expected-on-4-20">Bitcoin halving expected to hit on 4/20</a>



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Past analyst <a href="https://insights.glassnode.com/the-week-onchain-week-39-2023/">estimates</a> put the lowest sustainable price for miners after the halving at $30,200. Bitcoin would need to drop 40% from here to reach that point.



That figure was calculated before a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ordinals-impact-on-bitcoin-network">huge influx of Ordinals-related</a> activity, which has given miners additional breathing room. In any case, with block rewards cut in half, miners will surely be looking to transaction fees to bridge the revenue gap.



Bitcoin users have paid an estimated $124 million to use the network over the past 30 days or so, less than half in the previous period but two-thirds ahead of the average for the past year.



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Bitcoin price still $43k after trading sideways for 2 months

Ben Strack

Riot Platforms is partnering with China-based bitcoin miner manufacturer MicroBT in an effort to secure an on-shore supply chain and potentially triple its hash rate.



Riot CEO Jason Les told Blockworks the deal is also a step toward more broadly bolstering the bitcoin mining industry domestically.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Founded in 2016, MicroBT develops and sells integrated circuits and bitcoin mining hardware under the WhatsMiner brand. It revealed a partnership with New York-based Foundry Digital in 2020 to increase its market share in North America.



The purchased MicroBT machines — to be created at a new facility in Pittsburgh — will be for Riot’s Corsicana facility in Texas’s Navarro County. Riot broke ground on the 1-gigawatt expansion project last October — slated to be bigger than its now-largest 700-megawatt Rockdale facility.&nbsp;



The initial order for the “long-term purchase agreement” amounts to 33,280 machines at a price of roughly $163 million, or $21.50 per terahash (TH). Riot has the option to buy an additional 66,560 machines before the end of 2024 at the same price.&nbsp;



MicroBT Chief Operating Officer Jordan Chen called the M56S+ and M56S++ — the models Riot ordered — “the most powerful machines we have ever developed” in a statement.



Riot has tested the machines over the past several months. Those models are designed for immersion cooling systems such as the ones to be used in the company’s Corsicana facility.



“This order will drive expansion of our operations allowing us to hire and train new staff to fulfill our growing United States-based manufacturing business,” Chen added.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Growing hash rate, improving logistics </h2>



Riot historically only bought large amounts of machines from MicroBT rival Bitmain, a firm also based in China.&nbsp;



The company previously had to charter jets and endure expensive shipping costs to get machines delivered overseas, Les said. The arrangement with MicroBT “de-risks the logistics,” he added, as now trucks can ship the miners from Pennsylvania to Texas.&nbsp;



“By entering this order and forming this partnership with MicroBT, we’ve now helped develop this pipeline of access to US-manufactured miners,” the CEO told Blockworks. “We think that’s great for the industry and we think that’s great for decentralization.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Riot Platforms mined 676 BTC ($20.5 million) in May. It ended the month with roughly 800 miners staged for deployment — at which point the company said it was set to have 94,976 miners with a hash rate capacity of about 10.6 exahashes per second (EH/s).&nbsp;



The company was set to grow to 12.5 EH/s in the second half of 2023, it said earlier this month. But the deal with MicroBT could help Riot nearly triple that hash rate within the next two years or so.



Delivery of the 33,280 machines is expected to start in December, as deployment would follow in the first quarter of next year. Those machines would raise Riot’s hash rate to 20.1 EH/s. 



Marathon, another major US miner, <a href="https://ir.mara.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1315/marathon-digital-holdings-announces-bitcoin-production-and" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> 15.2 EH/s operational hash rate earlier this month, with 404.89 EH/s on the entire <a href="https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/hashrate-chart" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">network</a> right now.



If Riot chooses to buy the additional 66,560 MicroBT machines, its capacity is estimated to reach 35.4 EH/s. 



“We really like the product … and we really like the price of the hash rate right now,” Riot’s Les said. “While we do not have all the capital on our balance sheet to purchase [the additional] miners right now, we wanted to make sure we secured the option to.”



He added: “As we continue raising capital in the future, we’ll have the ability to put that to use at these low prices now.” &nbsp;



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Riot inks MicroBT deal to build bitcoin miners in US — not China

Shalini Nagarajan

Crypto miner BIT Mining (BTCM) once made most of its self-mining revenue from Ethereum. After the Merge, it’s increasingly relying on Dogecoin and Litecoin for fresh cash.



The miner, based in Ohio and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, reported revenue of $72.9 million for last quarter — a near-20% jump from the previous period but down 75% year on year.



BIT Mining’s revenue comes from three primary business areas: mining crypto itself, mining as part of a pool and hosting services in its datacenters.&nbsp;



The firm’s mining pool revenue came in at $60 million last quarter, making up 82% of its total inflows, while self-mining and datacenters each brought in about $6 million.



As noted by analyst Mike Fay (via Seeking Alpha), Ethereum mining contributed more than three-quarters of BIT’s self-mining revenue leading up to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/the-investors-guide-to-the-ethereum-merge" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the Merge</a> last September.&nbsp;



The event transitioned Ethereum away from energy-intensive proof of work to proof of stake, eliminating the need for crypto miners as part of consensus.&nbsp;



BIT Mining’s self-mining revenue predictably nosedived after the switch, dropping from $7.1 million in Q3 2022 to $1.9 million in the following period.&nbsp;



The firm mined $6.2 million crypto in the first quarter of 2023 — most of it litecoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/ltc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LTC</a>) and dogecoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/doge" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DOGE</a>) after shutting down certain bitcoin mining rigs.



Dogecoin and Litecoin <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/litecoin-dogecoin-see-mining-surge" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hashrates skyrocketed to all-time highs</a> directly around the Merge, although their hashing algorithms differ from Ethereum&#8217;s. Crypto miners are able to direct their rigs at Dogecoin and Litecoin simultaneously through what’s known as &#8220;merge-mining.&#8221;



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</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">BTCM has drastically underperformed the crypto market, as well as major miners Riot and Marathon</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIT Mining sold ETH over staking it</h2>



Fay found one move particularly confounding: BIT Mining sold one-third of its ETH holdings between quarters, amounting to 1,602 ETH ($3 million at current prices).&nbsp;



On the other hand, the firm held 62% more dogecoin quarter on quarter, going from 42.8 million DOGE ($3.1 million) to 69.5 million DOGE ($5 million). Its bitcoin holdings (289 BTC worth $7.8 million) remained unchanged.



That means BIT Mining’s crypto balance sheet was almost 28% DOGE at the end of Q1 2023. Its total assets were $40.2 million with $39 million liabilities, including lease obligations.



“The company’s crypto treasury management decisions are odd from where I sit,” Fay wrote in his <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4608582-bit-mining-limited-selling-ethereum-holding-dogecoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>. “While I&#8217;ve made it no secret that I think assets like Dogecoin don&#8217;t have much of a future, in my view the more egregious decision is selling the ETH on the balance sheet when the company could be generating rewards by staking it natively on-chain.”



Fay continued: “It&#8217;s difficult to understand why management would opt instead for holding meme coins rather than selling all DOGE production and staking Ethereum at virtually no cost. BTCM is still an avoid for me.” Blockworks has reached out to BIT Mining for comment.



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</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Thanks to rising ETH prices this year, BIT Mining’s ether stash is worth practically the same</figcaption></figure>



In any case, BIT Mining has reportedly only managed to generate a positive net income for one quarter between 2016 and 2022 while increasingly diluting its shares as of 2021.



BIT Mining, which commands a $31 million market cap, is up 85% across 2023 so far but down the same amount over the past year.



David Canellis contributed reporting.



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Ethereum Miner Dumped ETH After Merge in Favor of Dogecoin

Sabre56 remains at the beginning stages of a planned seven-year strategy to shift its focus from consulting on bitcoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BTC</a>) mining projects to offering hosting services to industry firms.



As a result of its deal with GEM Mining, disclosed Tuesday, Sabre56 is set to host 4,510 of the South Carolina-based private company’s bitcoin miners at its new Wyoming data centers. Half are expected to come online this month, with the other half in June.



The link-up with GEM Mining comes after Sabre56 raised $35 million in February to build data centers supporting blockchain infrastructure with a capacity of 150 megawatts (MW).&nbsp;&nbsp;



Sabre56 founder Phil Harvey told Blockworks the company is engaged with additional “tier-one echelon” mining companies amid the strategic move to bolster its hosting capabilities.&nbsp;



Harvey said the transition was spurred in part by becoming “sick and tired” of bad mining farm operators.&nbsp;



“People are putting tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars into this space, and the way they’ve been treated in the past has been disgusting,” he added. “There are very few players that can deliver to this size and scale, and we are one of them.”



The deal comes after Stronghold Digital Mining signed a two-year hosting agreement with Cantaloupe Digital last month, which also involved roughly 4,000 miners. Stronghold is set to receive half of the bitcoin generated from the miners, as well as payments from Cantaloupe Digital amounting to 55% of the net cost of power at its Panther Creek plant.



Though exact terms of the hosting agreement between Sabre56 and GEM Mining were not released, Harvey noted there would be a “dynamic hosting rate” to accommodate clients’ fluctuating profit margins as crypto markets rise and fall.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A years-long process</h2>



Harvey said the hosting services build-out is designed to be a seven-year process, noting that 2023 is about growing the hosting portfolio. Sabre56 projects to expand after that by between 100 MW and 200 MW of capacity per year.



Sabre56 has more miners in the pipeline that are set to take hosting services in its current and under-construction facilities in Wyoming and Ohio.&nbsp;



Going forward, the company would be open to working with &#8220;institutional-backed and institutional-grade&#8221; industry players such as Foundry, NYDIG, Marathon Digital and Argo Blockchain, among others, Harvey said.



&#8220;We’re constantly on the phone with these guys discussing various different options and possibilities to support them either in their own growth for their own sites, or for those guys to work on hosting with us,&#8221; the CEO added.&nbsp;



Though Sabre56 looks to continue offering consultant services this year to aid in cash flow, and ultimately grow faster, the company seeks to essentially wind down that business line by next year.



In addition to having expansion options at the Wyoming and Ohio sites Sabre56 is already contracted and building at, the firm is looking at Pennsylvania and Nebraska as potential areas to create hosting sites.&nbsp;



It also eyes opportunities in the Middle East and would be open to re-entering Canada — a country Sabre56 left when its Manitoba province paused new crypto mining operations for 18 months late last year.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sabre56 sees Bitcoin as an evolving space</h2>



In addition to building more hosting facilities, making sure they are ready for high-performance computing (HPC) is another focus. After all, companies outside of the bitcoin mining industry also use application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to support their own networks.&nbsp;



Facebook has developed its own ASIC, called <a href="https://ai.facebook.com/blog/meta-scalable-video-processor-MSVP" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MSVP</a>, which is designed to power video workloads at Meta. The company plans to use MSVP to ultimately help bring artificial intelligence-generated content inside and outside the metaverse to Meta apps.



&#8220;We already have an ASIC-ready facility that we can plug machines into, and we are agnostic in regards to what algorithm or blockchain those machines run on as long as it’s profitable for us and our clients,&#8221; Sabre56’s Harvey said.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Sabre56 remains wary of third-party risk as the bitcoin mining market condenses, the CEO added.



Core Scientific <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/compute-norths-business-goes-south" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filed for bankruptcy</a> in December after data center operator Compute North <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/compute-norths-business-goes-south" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">started its own such proceedings</a> in September. Industry watchers said at the end of 2022 that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/more-crypto-miner-bankruptcy-2023" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more could face a similar fate</a> this year.&nbsp;



Iris Energy co-founder Daniel Roberts said last December the company was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-miners-mulling-options-as-downturn-weighs-heavily" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">considering a shift to third-party hosting</a> as &#8220;a backstop&#8221; to stay afloat. It has instead continued focusing on boosting its <a href="https://investors.irisenergy.co/news-releases" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">self-mining</a> operations so far this year.&nbsp;&nbsp;



&#8220;What it looks like in the future is no one’s guess,&#8221; Harvey said of the mining industry landscape. &#8220;We just know it’s going to get smaller and smaller and there’s going to be fewer around to support the miner infrastructure (the Sabre side) as well as on the equipment side (the miners themselves).&#8221;



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Bitcoin Player Shifts Focus From Miner Consulting to Hosting

Sebastian Sinclair

Bitcoin miner outflows have reached their highest point in almost a year as BTC struggles to capture $30,000.



Glassnode&#8217;s Bitcoin Miner Outflow Multiple, which tracks the ratio of BTC moved by miners to the amount mined, has reached an 11-month high of 1.104.&nbsp;Back then, BTC was collapsing from a similar valuation to below $19,000.



The outflow metric doesn’t explicitly track funds sent from miners’ addresses to crypto exchanges — which might indicate sales. Still, outflows serve a rough guide for their sentiment: more outflows suggests less holding overall.



Bitcoin has struggled to push and hold above $30,000 for over the past six weeks. BTC is about flat over the day, hovering at $27,680, having slipped around 4.2% across the past five days.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">📈 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24BTC&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$BTC</a> Miner Outflow Multiple (7d MA) just reached a 11-month high of 1.104 Previous 11-month high of 1.068 was observed on 16 June 2022 View metric:<a href="https://t.co/rUT3MENeWz">https://t.co/rUT3MENeWz</a> <a href="https://t.co/dvDed0Crx6">pic.twitter.com/dvDed0Crx6</a>&mdash; glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) <a href="https://twitter.com/glassnodealerts/status/1655803609559310336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Proof-of-work miners are rewarded with BTC for spending electricity to validate transactions.&nbsp;Higher energy costs, market fluctuations and the need to cover <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/more-crypto-miner-bankruptcy-2023" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">operational expenses</a> could all be <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/miner-hodling-could-be-over" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">contributing to increased outflows</a>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-halving-a-year-out" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Historically</a>, miner selling pressure is often associated with short-term price corrections, as increased supply on the market can lead to temporary imbalances between supply and demand.



That’s best reflected in outflows’ previous high last year, when bitcoin fell as much as 30% across eight days in June.



Publicly-listed Bitcoin miners are indeed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/miner-hodling-could-be-over" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">opting to sell more of their mined crypto</a>, as opposed to more stoic holding strategies.&nbsp;



But Bitfinex in an analyst note cited Bitcoin’s recent hashrate record as reason to be hopeful over the short term, as it signals it &#8220;miner confidence in the future value of Bitcoin.&#8221;



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Bitcoin Miner Outflows at 11-month High After Market Rejects $30K

James Cirrone

The Biden Administration has argued it should enact a 30% tax on the cost of the electricity used by Bitcoin mining to address “the economic and environmental costs.&#8221;



The Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) excise tax, if passed, would have a phase-in period and “encourages firms to start taking better account of the harms they impose on society,” according to a blog <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/05/02/cost-of-cryptomining-dame-tax/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">post</a> by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). 



The tax is <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/05/02/cost-of-cryptomining-dame-tax/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimated</a> to bring in $3.5 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.



Bitcoin mining companies are now directing their ire at the Biden Administration for what they see as a blatant attempt to push crypto to the fringes.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/riot-blockchain" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Riot</a>, one of the largest public Bitcoin mining companies, condemned the proposed tax and told Blockworks the US should be leading the world in the development of the Bitcoin network.



“It’s hard to overstate how bad an idea this is,” Riot said in a statement exclusively provided to Blockworks. “This proposal would push financial innovation and jobs away from America to other jurisdictions overseas, while causing harmful environmental outcomes and increased national security risks for the United States.” 



Blockworks previously reported on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/riot-new-york-times-post" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Riot’s tiff with the New York Times</a> after the paper published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/business/bitcoin-mining-electricity-pollution.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">story</a> claiming that a Riot Platforms-owned mine in Rockdale, Texas used as much electricity as 300,000 homes in the vicinity.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/marathon-digital" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Marathon Digital</a> CEO Fred Thiel jumped into the fray as well, not mincing words. He told Blockworks that the Biden Administration’s plan has more to do with eliminating crypto than with meaningful action on climate change.



His reasoning is that the Bitcoin tax will push mining offshore to places where operations will more likely use energy sources generated by fossil fuels. For instance, before China <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/china-reemerges-as-top-mining-hub-a-year-after-blanket-ban" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">banned crypto mining</a>, two thirds of the electricity generation for bitcoin mining came from coal, <a href="https://www.iea.org/commentaries/bitcoin-energy-use-mined-the-gap" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to the International Energy Agency.



The White House addressed this concern, but only in passing, by naming countries and localities where crypto mining is banned. 



“Although the potential for cryptomining to relocate abroad — such as to areas with dirtier energy production — is a concern, other countries are also increasingly moving to restrict crypto asset mining. China banned such activity completely in 2021, as have eight other countries,” the CEA blog post stated.&nbsp;



Thiel also cited the Bitcoin Mining Council’s 2022 fourth quarter report that <a href="https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/BMC-Q4-2022-Presentation.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">claims</a> Bitcoin mining consumes 0.17% of the world’s energy production. 



If those figures are correct, data from the US Energy Information Administration shows residential lighting and televisions use slightly more kilowatt hours of electricity than US crypto mining operations, while computers use less.



Beyond the environmental concerns, Thiel argued this proposal will run crypto miners out of business. 



“If you just blanketly added 30% cost to mining … you would significantly impact their profitability, potentially making them unprofitable, which would essentially shut them down.” Thiel said. 



“This is basically a bounty on Bitcoin miners.&#8221;



The crypto mining tax was originally a budget proposal that was released on Mar. 9. According to a Treasury Department <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/General-Explanations-FY2024.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">document</a>, the phase-in lasted three years, with the tax beginning at 10% and increasing another ten percentage points each year.



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‘A Bounty on Bitcoin Miners’: Industry Slams Biden’s 30% Tax

A Texas Senate committee has moved forward on a bill could make the state less attractive for bitcoin miners.



The bill, sponsored by Republican state senators Lois Kolkhorst, Donna Campbell and Robert Nichols, aims to nix tax breaks and demands miners using more than 10 megawatts (MWs) to register as flexible load operators with state grid operator ERCOT.



Lawmakers in the state unanimously <a href="https://tlcsenate.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=17585" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">approved</a> Senate Bill <a href="https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB1751/2023" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">1751</a> in a 10-0 vote on April 4. 



Texas is considered one of the largest hubs in the world for bitcoin mining, owing to its deregulated grid, low electricity prices and renewable energy options. Lawmakers <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/china-mining-exodus-seen-as-positive-for-bitcoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pitched the state</a> as a friendly alternative to mining operations exiled by China’s ban in 2021.



Bitcoin miners across Texas are using 75% more power than last year, around 2,100 MW, Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/despite-industry-headwinds-bitcoin-mining-booms-texas-2023-03-23/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> citing figures from Texas Blockchain Council president Lee Bratcher. That&#8217;s about 3.7% of the lowest forecast peak load and almost triple power used in 2021.



Texas’ grid has suffered deadly outages during <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/11/texas-heatwave-power-grid-ercot" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">heat waves</a> and <a href="https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/2022/01/04/246-texans-died-february-freeze-and-power-loss-officials-say/9080688002/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wintery storms</a> over the past few years, making consistent energy supply a hot-button issue for local voters. Under current conditions, miners are rewarded for shutting down when demand is high, so that the power gets redirected to the grid.



A key provision of the new bill restricts miners&#8217; participation in that demand response scheme to just 10% of the total program.



Riot Blockchain, one of the most prominent Texas-based crypto miners, is among firms that benefited from the state’s incentives. Last year, the miner raked in as much as <a href="https://gizmodo.com/texas-bitcoin-bitcoin-mining-ercot-riot-blockchain-1849367067" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$9.5 million</a> in power credits because it shut down its rigs multiple times.



Dennis Porter, CEO of bitcoin mining advocacy firm Satoshi Action Fund, <a href="https://twitter.com/Dennis_Porter_/status/1643247346996637699" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a> that the bill will eliminate incentives for miners to create jobs in rural communities.



“Unfortunately members of the committee were swayed by the influence of the powerful bill sponsor,” Porter said. “There is talk it could also pass through the Senate. It will be critical to fight back against the bill in the House in order to kill the bill.”



The bill is next headed to the Texas Senate for a floor vote before it moves on to the House.



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Texas Steps Closer To Cutting Incentives for Bitcoin Miners

<div id="highlights-block_63231910eded9" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Crypto markets are weighed heavily by macroeconomic factors, regardless of the Merge’s significance</li>
 <li>Some existing proof-of-work chains are seeing booming hashrates in the hours since Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The Merge <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ethereum-switches-to-proof-of-stake-after-7-years-of-work/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">happened this morning</a> — a milestone Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been anticipating for eight years — but the price of ether has remained muted.



In fact, ether dropped up to 2% around the time of the transition. It has since rebounded slightly, trading at $1,590, down 1% over the past 24 hours as of 7:30 am, ET.



Bitcoin, which alongside Dogecoin is now one of just two top-10 blockchains running on proof of work, saw its native cryptocurrency shed a similar amount, hovering around $20,150.



In fact, no top-tier digital asset is green over the past day. Cosmos, a rival layer-1 blockchain, did however see its native asset ATOM catch a 10% wave in the minutes directly following the Merge, jumping from $13.30 to as high as $14.64 this morning.&nbsp;



ATOM is currently the second-best top-50 digital asset over the past week, up 12%, just behind Yuga Labs’ ApeCoin, which has added 16%.



Such anti-climatic price action may have some investors scratching their heads. Still, industry players remain bullish on the Merge’s long-term impact.



“The Merge is far from being priced in. Recent price action has been largely influenced by



external macro factors coupled with broader industry shakeouts,” Daniel Dizon, CEO at Ethereum staking protocol Swell Network CEO, told Blockworks in an email.



Dizon expects the macro environment to normalize over time, while the Ethereum ecosystem will continue to innovate and develop. This, combined with structural changes to how ether is issued, would be enough to bring in more retail and institutional capital, resulting in upward price pressure, Dizon said.



He added that switching to proof-of-stake has “entrenched Ethereum as the de facto blockchain to power Web3 and beyond.” Future upgrades, particularly around scalability, crossed with burgeoning activity across its layer-2 landscape, are expected to make it challenging for alternative layer-1s to legitimately encroach on Ethereum’s market share over the medium-to-longer term.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Absent ether mining, other blockchains see hashrate boost</h3>



The Ethereum blockchain is no longer mineable. Its original fork, Ethereum Classic (ETC), has seen its <a href="https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/ethereum-classic/hashrate-chart" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hashrate</a> explode out of the Merge, surging nearly 160% in the past day, from 55 TH/s to 142 TH/s.



That makes the network more secure and less susceptible to a 51% attack, somewhat crucial as ETC has <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/08/29/ethereum-classic-hit-by-third-51-attack-in-a-month/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">suffered from several</a> in the past.



Ethereum Classic’s hashrate (which measures the total computing power on the network) repeatedly hit all-time highs leading up to the Merge, having doubled between the end of July and the start of September.



For scale, Ethereum <a href="https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/ethereum/hashrate-chart" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">finished</a> its last full day of proof-of-work mining with more than 1,000 TH/s, while currently Dogecoin boasts 542 TH/s — both dwarfing ETC.



Crypto miners running high-performance GPUs are clearly looking to retain profitability with alternative networks. But that hasn’t suddenly converted to any sizable price movement for Ethereum Classic’s native token, ETC, which is up 5% in the past day but only 2% in the past week — again, just noise.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="479" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png" alt="" class="wp-image-31412" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=2048 2048w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-15-at-14.25.39-1024x479.png?w=50 50w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>Ethereum Classic&#8217;s hashrate had been ramping up leading up to the Merge. Source: <a href="https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/ethereum-classic/hashrate-chart" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinWarz</a></figcaption></figure>



One explanation could be that hashrate alone doesn’t bring usage. Ethereum Classic currently has few transactions <a href="https://etcblockexplorer.com/mempool" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in its mempool</a> waiting to be mined — a grand total of 9 as of press time, compared to 165,000 on Ethereum. ETC has however climbed more than 170% in the past two months, hinting that <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-markets-bet-big-on-whats-next-for-ethereum-miners/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">speculation of future usage has driven</a> its price action rather than any tangible growth.



While Dogecoin and Litecoin haven’t seen any major immediate hashrate boosts, other proof-of-work chains have seen theirs grow around the Merge. RavenCoin’s is up 80% <a href="https://2miners.com/rvn-network-hashrate" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">today</a> (10 TH/s to 18 TH/s), while Syscoin’s, a much smaller blockchain, has <a href="https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/syscoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">jumped</a> 50% in the past week (39 EH/s to 58 EH/s).&nbsp;



RavenCoin’s native asset of the same name has surged 75% in the past seven days, hinting that markets anticipated miners would — at least in the short term — flock to the chain.



And so, those miners will no doubt be eyeing Ethereum’s most recent fork, ETHPoW (ETHW), which is expected to formally come online sometime <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/proof-of-work-ethereum-fork-pow-rally-miners-with-1-hour-countdown/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in the next 24 hours</a>. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Ether fork price volatile after airdrop, as expected</h3>



Major mining pools have pledged to support ETHW, alongside prominent community figures such as early ETC backer <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ethereum-fork-may-be-doomed-to-fail-but-chandler-guo-is-all-in-again/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chandler Guo</a>.



In the meantime, crypto exchanges have begun airdropping ETHW to users who held ether at the time of the Merge.&nbsp;



An FTX market for the token is already live — after briefly dumping up to 15%, from $20 to $17, ETHW has since climbed 75% to reach a local top of $30 before retreating below $24 at press time. Although, that’s less than 2% of the price of ether.



At this point, the future of ETHW seems suspect, outside of heavy-capitalized mining outfits swooping for what could be one last hurrah. It seems unreasonable to expect the chain could compete with Ethereum and its merry band of layer-1 rivals, especially so considering no major stablecoin or DeFi protocol has pledged to operate on the network.



“Alternative layer-1s — such as Solana and Polkadot — still have a fair chance to innovate on consensus mechanisms, validator design, smart contract environment, peer-to-peer layers, and more,” Chen Zhuling, CEO at blockchain infrastructure provider RockX, said. “Many of these layer-1s have also been increasingly cultivating their developer communities and advocates.&#8221;



“The game is still on.”



Updated at 10:03 am, ET to add context about ETC&#8217;s price movements.



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Ether Price Flat After Merge as Miners Hunt for Hashrate Home

<div id="highlights-block_63203f5feedd2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>ETHW’s mainnet launch is a direct response to the Merge event for Ethereum</li>
 <li>A successful Merge will put Ethereum miners out of business, leading to a proof-of-work spinoff</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The controversial Ethereum proof-of-work (PoW) fork, ETHPoW (ETHW), is expected to formally launch within 24 hours after the Merge, stewards of the nascent network <a href="https://twitter.com/EthereumPoW/status/1569428021437935617?s=20&amp;t=500Dk049w3JY1LAG-S92lQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> late Monday.



The exact timing of ETHW’s mainnet deployment — the phase where fully-fledged blockchains are made available to the public — will be announced via a countdown timer one hour before going live, giving prospective participants a target to connect to the network.



The Merge event, which will see Ethereum transition to proof-of-stake (PoS), is slated for the very early hours of Sept. 15, once the blockchain reaches Terminal Total Difficulty of 58,750,000,000T.



Final code, binaries, configuration files, node info and the like for the Ethereum spinoff will be made available once the timer reaches zero, the stewards said.



Previously, miners on Ethereum have helped secure the network under a PoW-powered consensus mechanism. The transition to PoS will effectively put them out of business, leading major GPU miner <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ethereum-fork-may-be-doomed-to-fail-but-chandler-guo-is-all-in-again/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chandler Guo</a> to rally support for ETHW.



Indeed, ETHW is a direct response to the Merge, with those hoping to maintain the older Ethereum state, including its transaction history and all records of assets, as a means of survival.



Several exchanges have already voiced their support for the PoW fork. This has led markets to spring up for <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum-pow-iou">IOUs</a> of the network’s token, to be distributed by participating exchanges after the blockchain comes online.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Traders dumping Ethereum PoW could drag the price of ether</h3>



Skepticism abounds over whether ETHW will be particularly valuable (it currently <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum-pos-iou" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">trades</a> for around $29, while the PoS <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/ethereum-pos-iou" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">version</a> changes hands just below ether par, at $1,685).



Pricing for both ether and ETHW could be impacted if traders immediately sell their ETHW once their IOUs are swapped, Matt Weller, global head of research at FOREX.com told Blockworks in an email.



“Current grey market valuations for ETHW are at around 3% of the value of the main Ethereum network, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see ETH fall by ~3% immediately after even a successful Merge, akin to a stock going ex-dividend,” Weller said, as traders would hypothetically seek to offload the ether they bought to receive the fork token.



It&#8217;s not the first time the network has forked. Back in 2015, Ethereum split into two separate chains, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic (ETC), with the latter maintaining the original code and developed by Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood — complete with transactions associated with <a href="https://medium.com/swlh/the-story-of-the-dao-its-history-and-consequences-71e6a8a551ee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Dao hack</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">The ETHPoW whitepaper (linked from their official website) is pure performance art. There&#39;s a title page, a page that says &quot;The Original Ethereum Blockchain&quot;, and then 7 pages that just say &quot;intentionally left blank&quot;. <a href="https://t.co/nNHqTjZHUX">pic.twitter.com/nNHqTjZHUX</a>&mdash; frankie (@FrankieIsLost) <a href="https://twitter.com/FrankieIsLost/status/1567685957230673921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption>Onlookers have levied criticism at ETHPoW&#8217;s sparse &#8220;marketing <a href="https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafybeiad2fsci44nzqoel4pvgpbugzzdugam53ylz42fdv2rbqj4r6fpxu/EthereumPoW%20Whitepaper.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">whitepaper</a>&#8221; in the leadup to its deployment.</figcaption></figure>



Chandler Guo was also a primary supporter of Ethereum Classic (ETC). While ETC has remained largely dormant relative to its developer activity and user adoption, it still commands a $5.2 billion market capitalization and currently ranks 19th in the top 20 coins.&nbsp;



ETC’s hash rate, which measures mining activity on the network, has repeatedly hit all-time highs leading up to the Merge, as miners speculate on which network will be most profitable once Ethereum abandons PoW. The network boasts less than 5% of Ethereum&#8217;s current hash rate.



Still, that traction has also buoyed its token price, with ETC up more than 10% on the week and more than <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-markets-bet-big-on-whats-next-for-ethereum-miners/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">180% in two months</a>.



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Proof-of-work Ethereum Fork to Rally Miners with 1 Hour Countdown

<div id="highlights-block_6316fa577ec60" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Major bitcoin mining pool Poolin is short on liquidity after mass withdrawals</li>
 <li>Withdrawals from the service&#8217;s wallet were suspended on Monday evening</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Crypto mining platform Poolin — one of the largest in the world — has frozen withdrawals until further notice as its stewards wrestle with liquidity issues and operational stability.



Poolin suspended withdrawals by 6pm ET on Monday as part of a defensive move designed to navigate a “dull crypto market,” according to a <a href="https://medium.com/@PoolinWalletOfficial/sep-5th-announcement-on-the-temporary-suspension-of-withdrawals-96a8915bcff0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a> from the firm on Sunday.



Flash trades and internal transfers within Poolin’s systems have also been halted indefinitely. The firm, which supports mining on multiple proof of work chains, said it would continue exploring “strategic alternatives with various parties.”



Still, Poolin said users&#8217; assets in its PoolinWallet are safe and that the company’s net worth was positive. Withdrawals <a href="https://help.poolin.me/hc/en-us/articles/10207618877977-Announcement-on-settlement-adjustment-and-ZERO-fee-promo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">en masse</a> were partly to blame for the freeze, according to Poolin’s statement.



Daily mined coins have continued to be paid out per day, the firm said, while other coins have not been affected.



Liquidity has continued to plague multiple crypto firms, including <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crashing-prices-expose-bitcoin-mining-industrys-addiction-to-leverage/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">major bitcoin mining companies</a>, following a market shakeout earlier in the year. It was later revealed large <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/celsius-lost-potential-6b-bailout-after-refusing-to-show-financials-investor-says/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">crypto lenders</a> had been overleveraged while exposed to troubled projects, making them susceptible to outsized crypto price moves.



In an effort to stabilize its liquidity woes, Poolin said it would slash certain fees and switch its payout method to bitcoin miners from Full-Pay-Per-Share (FPPS) to Pay-Per-Last-N-Shares (PPLNS).



The methods differ slightly with FPPS offering miners a share of transaction fees in a given pool while PPLNS only generates a profit based on the number of blocks mined.



Poolin has mined a tad over 10% (1,381) of all bitcoin blocks over the past three months, according to <a href="https://btc.com/stats/pool?pool_mode=month3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BTC.com data</a>, converting to 8,361 BTC ($166.4 million at current prices). The pool is currently mining around 3.6% of all ether blocks.



Poolin said it would take a snapshot of the remaining bitcoin and ether balances within its mining pools to determine what’s owed to miners.



An update to the payout schedule for remaining balances will be released when details are finalized, Poolin said, which expects further details, as well as solutions, provided to users sometime next week.



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Bitcoin Mining Pool Poolin Halts Withdrawals Amid Liquidity Crunch

Casey Wagner

<div id="highlights-block_63111910b5316" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Bitcoin’s price decline and the rising cost of power has made turning a profit difficult </li>
 <li>Some at-home miners opt to lose money on older setups, just for the learning experience</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



With the price of bitcoin faltering and mining difficulty on the rise, crypto enthusiasts who once took home a pretty penny mining out of home garages are now finding it harder to break even.



Mining bitcoin at home today is much more challenging than in the early days of crypto. Mining equipment is costly and electricity does not come cheap, either, and the number of people willing to risk investing in bitcoin mining operations has shrunk.



“In terms of demand, it declined in June very, very significantly,” Lauren Lin, operations manager at mining pool Luxor, said. “However, at the beginning of August, the demand has been picking up, partly because the bitcoin price went up a little from June’s decline and also more hosting sites have come online.”&nbsp;



Hosting sites are data centers where miners can store and operate their equipment for a fee. The infrastructure that comes with bitcoin mining, at least to be profitable, is substantial, Lin said.&nbsp;



“To mine at home, it not only requires the capital to purchase the ASIC [application-specific integrated circuit rig], you need to know how to ventilate, you need to know how to deal with the noise and the heat, there’s a lot to consider,” Lin said.&nbsp;



Profitability is first and foremost the top concern for most miners, Lin added, and recently, it’s been harder to turn a profit. More first-time miners have been purchasing S9 mining units, an older model that does not produce enough bitcoin to offset the electricity costs.&nbsp;



“I will say, at least for our customer base, the people doing this have the main purpose to test how mining works,” Lin said. “If you are mining at home, with residential power rates, an S9 is not profitable at all, but you would get some experience.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin mining at home no match for major companies</h3>



Corporations keen to cash in on the crypto demand have been on the rise as well, further pushing out garage-based operations.&nbsp;



“The big boys are playing hard and employing multiple strategies to make a profit from their sites,” Sam Doctor and David Bellman, mining researchers at analytics firm BitOoda, wrote in a recent note.&nbsp;



The ‘big boys,’ i.e., the major corporations that have entered the mining space in recent years, are diversifying their revenue streams to weather rocky market conditions. Nasdaq-listed Stronghold Digital Mining has been selling power to the grid — and its mining machines — to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crashing-prices-expose-bitcoin-mining-industrys-addiction-to-leverage/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cover debt</a>.&nbsp;



Other companies have shifted gears entirely. Bitcoin miners in Rochester, New York have brought a retired power plant back into operation to generate new cryptocurrency.



Private-equity firm Atlas Holdings purchased Greenidge Generation in 2014 and converted the coal-fired power plant to natural gas. In 2021, the company started using the generated power to mine bitcoin. There is now <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/new-york-passes-bill-restricting-carbon-fueled-crypto-mining-operations/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">legislation in New York</a> aiming to prevent new operations from drawing on fossil fuels.&nbsp;



There has also been a shift in geography, Lin added, especially in the wake of <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/china-mining-exodus-seen-as-positive-for-bitcoin/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">China’s ban</a> on mining operations. Mining activity has picked up across Europe and South America, Lin said.&nbsp;



“Starting from the end of last year, we&#8217;re seeing more and more South American miners scaling up,” Lin said. “Around the time of the China mining ban, they were still purchasing a very old generation of ASICs, now, they are moving into the latest generation of the ASICs.”



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The Days of Lucrative Bitcoin Mining at Home are Over

<div id="highlights-block_62b2e008b083e" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Bitfarms’ current bitcoin holdings stand at 3,349 BTC, down from more than 6,000 BTC in May</li>
 <li>The firm used some of the cash to pay off bitcoin-backed loans from Galaxy Digital</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Bitfarms has ditched its “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hodl.asp#:~:text=HODL%20is%20a%20term%20derived,post%20to%20the%20Bitcointalk%20forum." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hodling</a>” strategy and begun selling its mined bitcoin (BTC) to pay off loans and shore up its balance sheet.



The Toronto-based cryptocurrency miner sold 3,000 BTC ($62 million) in the past week, it <a href="https://bitfarms.com/app/uploads/2022/06/Bitfarms-PR-22-06-22-BTC-Sale-v4-Clean-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a> on Tuesday. Bitfarms is “no longer HODLing all our daily BTC production,” Jeff Lucas, the miner’s CFO, said.



“We believe that selling a portion of our BTC holdings and daily production as a source of liquidity is the best and least expensive method in the current market environment,” he added.



Since May, Bitfarms’ BTC holdings have shrunk by almost half to 3,349 BTC ($67.5 million). The firm is currently mining around 14 BTC ($282,000) per day over the month to date.&nbsp;



Bitfarms said it used some of those proceeds to reduce its bitcoin-backed credit facility with digital asset bank Galaxy Digital by 42%, now down to $38 million.



Indeed, selling bitcoin to cover expenses is becoming par for the course for cryptocurrency miners, especially those who had <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crashing-prices-expose-bitcoin-mining-industrys-addiction-to-leverage/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">taken out loans</a> to fund their rapid expansion over the past year.



Bitfarms’ move mirrors competitor Riot Blockchain, which has sold 700 BTC for over $17.5 million since <a href="https://www.riotblockchain.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/126/riot-blockchain-announces-march-2022-production-and" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">March</a>. In May, Marathon Digital’s Chief Financial Officer Hugh Gallagher said it too may <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4507058-marathon-digital-holdings-inc-mara-ceo-fred-thiel-on-q1-2022-results-earnings-call-transcript" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">consider</a> selling some of the bitcoin it holds for treasury management or general expenses.



Bitcoin miners also dumped their holdings faster than usual in May, <a href="https://twitter.com/JMellerud/status/1539242413830680576" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according</a> to Arcane Research analyst Jaran Mellerud. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Miners have started to dump their <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#bitcoin</a> holdings. Public miners sold more than 100% of their production in May, a massive increase from the usual 25-40%. <a href="https://t.co/KabSWqvL4T">pic.twitter.com/KabSWqvL4T</a>&mdash; Jaran Mellerud (@JMellerud) <a href="https://twitter.com/JMellerud/status/1539242413830680576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Arcane found the top 28 publicly-traded miners sold 4,271 BTC last month, representing a 329% month-on-month jump — and they’re likely to sell more in June, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-21/bitcoin-miner-bitfarms-sells-coins-after-ending-holding-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg</a> reported.



Fears of contagion from the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-fund-three-arrows-capital-facing-potential-insolvency-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">asset liquidations</a> of Three Arrows Capital have pulled crypto prices lower, with bitcoin reaching lows of $17,600 this week before recovering above $20,000. The bellwether digital asset last traded at $20,400 as of Wednesday morning, according to data from <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com/assets/btc/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockworks Research</a>, almost 60% below its value at the start of the year.



Crypto mining stocks are generally tightly correlated with bitcoin prices. Share prices for both Riot and Marathon — the two largest public mining companies — have collapsed 80% so far this year while Bitfarms has fallen 73%.



The sense of euphoria that enabled bitcoin’s all-time high of $68,900 in November 2021 is missing right now, said Brian Gould, head of trading at Capital.com.



&nbsp;“Traders in crypto have had to take a cold shower, and building that euphoric momentum to reignite the uptrend will take a lot of energy and influence that we’re not seeing,” he said.



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Crypto Miner Bitfarms Sells Bitcoin to Reduce Debt, Boost Liquidity

<div id="highlights-block_62670a542fe39" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>If passed, the bill would place a moratorium on proof-of-work crypto mining for at least two years</li>
 <li>One environmentally minded state lawmaker is concerned about fossil fuel plants moving into crypto mining</li>
 </ul>
 
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A New York <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/A7389">bill</a> that would ban new proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining operations and prevent existing facilities from renewing their permits for at least two years advanced Monday.



A version of the <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s6486" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bill</a> passed the New York State Senate last June before being referred to an environmental committee. It’s likely this new measure, bill A7389C, will advance to the New York Assembly as soon as this week, according to John Olsen, the New York state lead at crypto lobbyist Blockchain Association.



Environmental groups in favor of the bill claim that cryptocurrency mining operations will prevent New York from reaching its carbon emission goals.



“The intention of the bill is to prevent new mining operations that would draw power from fossil fuel generation, even if it&#8217;s partial,” Olsen said. “The impact, though, is really just economic in the sense that good paying jobs are going to be going to other states, and mining operations that would face less regulatory scrutiny, in terms of environmental impact, would be setting up shop [in another state.]”



One miner in Rochester has drawn particular ire from lawmakers, according to state representative Anna Kelles, who sponsored the legislation.



“My bill is not a ban on Bitcoin,” Kelles <a href="https://twitter.com/annakelles/status/1518666567323631616?s=20&amp;t=f8GfETqoNqeJ1NgxucTEWw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a> Monday. “It’s not even a ban on crypto-mining. It would not restrict the ability to buy, sell, invest, or use crypto in [New York state].”&nbsp;



Private-equity firm Atlas Holdings purchased Greenidge Generation in 2014 and converted the coal-fired power plant to natural gas. In 2021, the company started using the generated power to mine bitcoin. It now operates with 19 megawatts of capacity — with plans to increase to 85 megawatts by year-end.&nbsp;



“There&#8217;s a certain interest in turning back on plants that use fossil fuel, use natural gas,” Olsen said. “The industry itself is always working on new technology to improve emissions, to meet standards to capture wasted energy that would otherwise not be utilized, so it&#8217;s a bit of a blow to an industry that is very much looking to be here in New York.”&nbsp;



The ban will push miners to other, more crypto-friendly states, Olsen said. Other areas offer more competitive tax incentives and energy costs, he added.&nbsp;



“I think miners want to be in New York because of the physical landscape, the abundance of renewable energy and potential for renewable energy,” he said. “They are just really skeptical and significantly concerned by the signals coming out of the legislature.”&nbsp;



The bill, if passed, would only impact “consolidated mining operations in power generators using fossil-fuel based energy behind the meter,” Kelles said on Twitter.



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Proof of work