Bitcoin

Archive link due to paywall

Crypto enthusiasts are hopeful that a once-in-four-years event which rewrites the underlying code of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency will extend the current market rally. But the milestone also risks sounding the death knell for certain Bitcoin miners.

[…]

“Nearly half of the miners will suffer given they have less efficient mining operations with higher costs,” predicts Jaran Mellerud, crypto-mining analyst at Hashrate Index.

He points to the break-even electricity price of the most common mining machine, which is expected to drop to six cents per kilowatt-hour from 12 cents/kWh after the halving. Around 40% of miners still have higher operating costs per kWh than that, Mellerud said. Miners with operating costs above 8 cents per kilowatt-hour will struggle to stay afloat, as will smaller miners that don’t run their own mining rigs but outsource them instead, he said.