Difficulty drop of 3.3 percent
Bitcoin’s price action is putting pressure on miners’ margins. Part of the network apparently has to put the machines on standby for a while, because the difficulty for Bitcoin mining has decreased by 3.3 percent this week. Throughout the history of Bitcoin, that is not an extreme decline, but in recent months the mining industry seemed to have little concern for the price declines. Now miners are apparently starting to feel some pain here and there.
According to MacroMicro, the average cost of mining Bitcoin is currently $26,250. As Bitcoin approaches that price, it becomes difficult for a larger part of the miners to make ends meet. However, if we are to believe Glassnode’s figures, the number of miner sales remains relatively low. They apparently still keep most of the Bitcoin they mine. In the long run, that is at least a good sign.