Bitcoin and Ethereum Mining Revenue Slashed Significantly in June

The general desirability of cryptocurrencies has dropped significantly over the past few months owing to the massive erosion of their value in the market. The growing distaste is one of the market conditions that crypto miners have had to contend with in recent days. This cocktail of factors has plagued profitability for Bitcoin and Ethereum miners, as evidenced by revenue figures reported last month.

Bitcoin miners’ profitability was down in June

Data from The Block Research indicates that Bitcoin mining revenue dipped by over 26% in June. Miners of the Satoshi coin raked in $668 million in rewards across June as leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin lost more than a third of its value.

The revenue figure was primarily contributed to by block reward subsidies at $656.5 million, while transaction fees contributed a meagre $11.5 million. This continued and consistent drop in miner rewards stretches back to October last year, with only slight optimism seen in May. Last month, the Bitcoin network also logged the lowest miner revenue per day this year, recording a total of $14.4 million on June 19.

Consistent hashrate despite dropping profitability

Even with the reducing proportion of returns to Bitcoin miners, the network has remained consistent in hashrate. Over the last week, the blockchain’s computational power ranged between 261.4 EH/s and 182.3 EH/s, though only a few mining rigs have been logging a profit.

Indicative of the persistence of these Bitcoin miners is that the 110 Terrahash Bitmain Antminer SJ19 Pro is currently being run at a profitability of -$0.28, down from $4.63 on May 27. Despite seeing its share of the worse conditions, Bitcoin overturned an overperforming Ethereum that had consistently been more profitable to miners from as far back as April 2021. In June, Bitcoin repaid its miners 1.26 times better than Ethereum did.

Ethereum’s month-over-month miner revenue declined by nearly half in June

Bitcoin mining revenue being more than Ethereum’s after such as long period of dominance of the latter paints the picture of how bad things fared for Ethereum miners. The Block Research found that Ethereum’s mining revenue shrunk by 45.5% across June relative to May. A sum of $528 million went to Ethereum miners as revenue.

The decline in this metric was largely contributed to by Ether charting heavy losses in the market. Of the total revenue figure, $498.8 million was sourced from block subsidies. That means transaction fees and uncle rewards were significantly less, recording $29.6 million and $21.1 million, respectively. Markedly, while Ethereum fell below Bitcoin last month, it had seen 1.08 times more revenue in May.

Ethereum average gas fee falls to $1.673, the lowest figure since December 2020

Elsewhere, over the weekend, the average transaction fee on Ethereum fell to its lowest level in more than 18 months. The last time the daily transaction cost hovered around this level was before NFTs exploded into the mainstream in December 2020.

The network’s average gas fee has been declining since January with May’s surge to $196.638, caused by Otherdeed’s NFT sale, being the only blip on BitInfoCharts’ graph tracking the average daily gas cost.

Marathon Digital to start operations at a reduced capacity this month

Last week Bitcoin miner, Marathon Digital, shared an update on the state of its storm-hit Montana-based facility in Hardin and when it plans to resume mining operations following the recent interruption. The firm halted mining operations in the Hardin site last month because of significant damage to part of its power generating and supply set-up.

The power outage caused by a June 11 storm rendered 30,000 devices (three-quarters of the Marathon’s active fleet) offline. In its damage assessment report, the crypto miner noted that its cooling towers needed repairs. There are also issues in the power generating station that need to be addressed as the firm rushes to be back online as early as this week.

To remain afloat during the period the facility is down, the firm has redirected its active miners (approximately 0.6 exahash) to a third-party mining pool. In April, Marathon Digital revealed it was exploring the possibility of shifting its Bitcoin miners from the coal-powered Montana facility to a location that guarantees sustainable power. The mining firm noted in a press release that it would eye locations with non-carbon emitting power sources and would transition gradually, completing the shift in Q3. No update has been provided on the same so far.

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