Bitcoin Miners Are Selling More BTC to Make Ends Meet: CryptoQuant

Bitcoin miners continue to feel the crunch, with firms in the space selling more coins than usual to make ends meet. 

Data firm CryptoQuant said in a Tuesday report that miners last week stepped up their selling as the price of the biggest cryptocurrency dropped below $80,000. 

The firm said that on April 7, miners sold a total of 15,000 BTC—the third-largest daily outflow this year. That's at least $1.12 billion worth, based on the day's low price of less than $75,000.

Increased market volatility—in both the stock market and crypto sphere—was mainly caused by President Trump's erratic announcements on tariffs, leaving traders unsure of how to act. 

Miners, which are typically large industrial operations of specialized computers processing transactions and minting new coins for the cryptocurrency's network, are rewarded with new Bitcoin for their work. 

But when the price of the coin takes a hit, they may struggle to cover costs—and be forced to sell more coins to keep their businesses running.

"Miner margins have been pressured by lower prices, but also with depressed transaction fees, and a record-high Bitcoin network hash rate, which implies higher mining costs, sending their average operating margins down from 53% in late January to 33% today," CryptoQuant said. 

The firm added that Bitcoin remains in one of its least bullish phases since November 2022. Bitcoin hit a new high of nearly $109,000 per coin ahead of President Trump's inauguration, but has since struggled to rise above $90,000. 

Bitcoin is now trading for nearly $83,800, a modest jump of just 1% over the past 30 days, CoinGecko shows. However, it's up almost 9% over the last week after diving to nearly $75,000.

President Trump promised to help the crypto industry—especially Bitcoin miners. And while the new commander-in-chief has approved a national Bitcoin strategic reserve and his SEC has scrapped a number of high-profile lawsuits against crypto firms, mining is a tough business. 

Miners at this year's Mining Disrupt conference told Decrypt that the industry would continue to struggle as the mining difficulty and costs increase.

Edited by Andrew Hayward