Bitcoin miners have likely decided to utilize their older cryptocurrency mining machines once again in the first quarter, contributing to a record-breaking hash rate as the price of Bitcoin soared to a new all-time high in early March.
According to Nico Smid, founder of Digital Mining Solutions, “Improved market conditions have encouraged miners who were previously unprofitable at lower hash price levels to come back online.” The firm’s first quarter Bitcoin mining review, published on April 2, stated this finding.
The hash price level of Bitcoin has followed a similar trajectory to its price change, which has increased by 56.8% in 2024 to $66,280 at the time of publication. The reactivation of these older Bitcoin miners may have led to a 14.7% increase in the Bitcoin hash rate since the beginning of 2024.
Additionally, the deployment of Bitmain S21s and other advanced mining equipment has also contributed to the growth of the Bitcoin hash rate over the first three months.
Bitcoin’s hash rate reached a peak of 631 exahashes per second (EH/s) on a 7-day moving average on March 11, which was less than a week after Bitcoin surpassed its previous all-time high price of $68,990.
Subsequently, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $73,738 on March 14, according to CoinGecko.
Interestingly, despite a steady decline in transaction fees since the start of March, Smid noted that miner revenues reached a new all-time high on March 10.
While older miners are being reactivated, the cost of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) machines is stabilizing as many Bitcoin miners are holding off on new investments in anticipation of the upcoming halving event.
Smid mentioned that miners appear to be taking a “wait and see” approach as the halving event draws near. He cited an ASIC Jungle survey which revealed that 65% of customers are postponing the purchase of new miners until after the halving.
The Bitcoin halving is scheduled for April 20 when block 840,000 is reached. This event will reduce miner rewards from 6.25 BTC ($414,000) to 3.125 BTC ($212,000) at current prices.