hans jurgen mager polar bear wave
Photo via Hans Jurgen Mager via Unsplash

Hashrate Index Roundup (May 15, 2022)

Embrace the bear.

Colin Harper
Colin Harper

Bitcoin shit the bed hard last week, dropping to as low as $25,000 on Thursday. It's currently down 13.5% since last week.

As a result, mining profitability is at its lowest levels since December 2020, a time when the incipient bubblings of fresh market euphoria elevated hashprice above $0.10/TH/day.

That was the beginning of the bull market, though. Now, the bear is here, and after last week, his teeth and claws are drenched in liquidations and double-digit drawdowns.

Embrace him, because he could be here for a while.

NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENT NIXES POW BAN

Legislators in Norway's Labor and Socialist party have shot down a proposal to ban proof of work mining in the country. Proposed in March by the country's Rødt (Red) party, which holds 8 out of 169 parliamentary seats, the bill would have completely banned PoW mining in Norway, perhaps the most active hub for bitcoin/crypto mining in Europe.

ARGO CONSIDERS BUILDING MINERS FROM SCRATCH WITH INTEL'S CHIP

From an interview with Argo Blockchain CEO Peter Wall, CoinDesk reports that public miner is "leaning towards" building their own bitcoin mining rigs using the chips they have purchased from Intel. The comment is notable considering Intel has given no indication that it will build mining rigs for its forthcoming ASIC mining chips; it's likely that Intel's initial customers (Argo, GRIID, and Block (formerly square)) will all build their own mining machines in-house using Intel's chips.


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Hashprice Index May 15, 2022

Hashrate Index Roundup Snapshot (May 15, 2022)
Hashrate Index Roundup Snapshot (May 15, 2022)

Bitcoin's USD hashprice has broken below $0.13/TH/day, while BTC hashprice is precariously close to breaking beolow 400 sats/TH/day (though a revived fee market is bolstering BTC hashprice for now).

Since the beginning of the year, USD and BTC hashprice have fallen 50% and 21%, respectively. Since their yearly highs last year, they have fallen 71% and 56%, respectively.

BTC-denominated hashprice (June 2021 - May 2022), bitcoin mining profitability
BTC-denominated hashprice (June 2021 - May 2022)
Bitcoin hashprice, mining profitability (June 2021 - May 2022)
Bitcoin hashprice (June 2021 - May 2022)
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BITCOIN DIFFICULTY

Bitcoin's difficulty notched another all-time high last week, rising 4.89% to 31.25 T. That makes for two all-time high adjustments in row after the 5.56% bump on April 27th.

These increases have worked in tandem with Bitcoin's price capitulation to take some serious air out of Bitcoin's hashprice; without the ATH difficulty (or, inversely, if Bitcoin's price weren't puking) hashprice would be in better shape.

There could be some reprieve on the horizon, though. With roughly 1/3rd of this current epoch elapsed, blocks are taking longer than usual, so we're currently estimating that the next difficulty adjustment will be to the downside.  

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BITCOIN TRANSACTION FEES

The one upside to all the carnage: Bitcoin's mempool is filling up again. Transaction fees are the highest they've been since last July--the immediate aftermath of China's Bitcoin mining ban.

Bitcoin transaction fees as a percentage of block rewards (April 16-May15, 2022)
Bitcoin transaction fees as a percentage of block rewards (April 16 - May 15, 2022)

Bitcoin ASIC Index May 15, 2022

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ASIC PRICE INDEX

Bitcoin mining ASIC prices have been on a 16 week drawdown, and the trend shows few signs of slowing. Many models, in fact, have already broken below their 2021 values, while newer series like the S19 and M30 models are just shy of their 2021 lows.

Bitcoin mining ASIC prices May, 15 2022
Bitcoin mining ASIC Price Index update (5/12/2022)
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PROFITABILITY OF POPULAR BITCOIN ASICs

Difficulty is up and Bitcoin price is down, so Bitcoin mining profitability dropped significantly this week.

  • Antminer S19 Pro (110 TH/s): $13.60
  • Antminer S19 (95 TH/s): $11.90
  • Whatsminer M30s++ (112 TH/s): $13.80
  • Whatsminer M30s (86 TH/s): $10.60
  • Antminer S17 (56 TH/s): $6.90
  • Whatsminer M20s (68 TH/S): $8.40
  • Antminer S9 (13 TH/s): $1.70

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Bitcoin Mining Stocks May 15, 2022

You know how it goes...Bitcoin mining stocks were crushed this week, with only a single company in our update turning green on the week. By contrast, the Hashrate Index Crypto Stock Index fell 10%.

Hashrate Index Crypto Mining Stock Index (May 9 - May13, 2022)
Hashrate Index Crypto Mining Stock Index (May 9 - May 13, 2022)
bitcoin mining stocks weekly leaders (May 9 - May 13, 2022)
bitcoin mining stocks weekly "leaders" (May 9 - May 13, 2022)
bitcoin mining stocks weekly laggards (May 9 - May 13, 2022)
bitcoin mining stocks weekly laggards (May 9 - May 13, 2022)

New From the Hashrate Index Blog

Bitcoin Mining Rig Prices Are Back to China-Ban Lows

Remember those calls last year for $20k S19 prices this year? Yeah, not happening (obviously).

Bitcoin mining ASICs are at their lowest levels since the China-ban fire-sale last summer, and many models have already broken below last year's lows according to our rig index. Save an act of God, we're not seeing five digit ASIC prices anytime soon.

Hashrate Index ASIC Price Index weekly change in $/TH value for each efficiency tier (May 2021-May 2022)
Hashrate Index ASIC Price Index weekly change in $/TH value for each efficiency tier (May 2021-May 2022)

Happy Hashing, and have a great week!

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Head of Research and Content at Luxor Technology