Significant Drop in BTC Mining Output Reported by Major US Companies

According to CryptoPotato, Hut 8, one of the largest crypto mining companies in the United States, has reported a significant decrease in proprietary production for April. The company's announcement on May 6 revealed a 36% drop in BTC mined in April compared to March. This decline was primarily due to the relocation of over 25,000 mining machines from sites in Nebraska and Texas, which were acquired by Marathon Digital Holdings. Hut 8 produced 148 BTC in April compared to 231 BTC in March, as its deployed hash rate fell from 5.4 EH/s (exahashes per second) to 4.5 EH/s. Hut 8 was not the only major Bitcoin mining firm to report a reduction in production. Other public mining companies such as Bitfarms, Cipher, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Riot, and Terawulf also reported production declines of between 6% and 12% in April, according to industry outlet The Miner Mag. The halving event on April 20 reduced the block reward by half to 3.125 BTC, which also halved the mining output to around 450 BTC per day from 900. However, the BTC fee market briefly negated the impact of the halving when Bitcoin Runes were launched, pushing up demand for block space. Nevertheless, as the latest meme asset craze loses popularity, it is expected that BTC production rates may continue to decline and miner selling may increase. On May 6, Riot Blockchain reported its April production updates. The firm had a 12% decline in BTC production in April, with 375 BTC produced compared to 425 in March. However, Riot expects its total self-mining hash rate capacity to reach 31 EH/s by the end of 2024, more than doubling its current capacity. The output reductions have coincided with a fall in profitability or ‘hash price.’ The current hash price is just $0.05 per terahash per second per day, according to Hash Rate Index. It has slumped 72% from a spike around the time of the halving to $0.182/TH/s/day and is down a whopping 87.5% from its 2021 highs of around $0.400/TH/s/day.