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Bitcoin mining is particularly lucrative for miners today. According to Glassnode, these companies generate $1 million per hour. This justifies record orders for new equipment.
Bitmain, the manufacturer of mining equipment for Bitcoin, is already having a historic December. This week, Marathon Patent Group placed an order for 70,000 Antminer S-19s. A few days earlier, Riot Blockchain paid 35 million dollars for its order.
The reason is simple: the current price of cryptocurrencies. Despite high volatility, the value of Bitcoin continues to rise. It can now aim for $30,000. This price is a key indicator for miners.
In fact, according to Glassnode, these manufacturers currently make $1 million in profit per hour. This is the most lucrative hour of work (or calculation) since July 2019, the company adds.
That was before the last Bitcoin halving in May. Prior to that time, miners were paid twice as much per block. Better yet, since the halving, the increase in miners’ earnings has reached 185%.
And the reason the increase is so large is simply because of the price of Bitcoin, which generates a lot of activity on the blockchain. Miners have to deal with a lot of transactions. For this, they are charged a fee.
For these companies, network congestion therefore rhymes with bonus. According to BitInfoCharts.com, the average cost for a transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain is currently about $8.7. Glassnode also estimates the cumulative revenue from mining at $13.8 billion.
The miners are currently very popular, thanks to Bitcoin’s bull-run and the increasing democratization of cryptocurrencies. More and more institutions are adopting encryption to diversify their portfolios.
At the same time, the increase in mining revenues is reflected in a surge in the stock market quotations of the main market players. Hive Blockchain and Riot Blockchain stocks gained more than 20% this week.