Bitcoin has temporarily grown from the $ 7,000 range to just under $ 9,500 in the past week, and some old mining machines (mining equipment/rigs) have crossed the profitable line (break-profit point) again.
According to the data provided by major mining pools Poolin and F2Pool, the old machines such as Bitmain's old model S9 and Canaan's A851 that have been popular in the past have a gross profit of 10% to 20% (when the average electricity cost is 0.05 kWh. Back calculation) has reached a level where it can generate again.
It is the BTC price and electricity bill, which are mainly obtained from mining rewards, that affect the profitability of mining.
According to the "mining machine profitable list" released by the exchange Gate.io in March this year, the shutdown price (break-profitable point) of the S9 series was in the range of $ 9831 to $ 10325.
However, this calculation is based on the hash rate (mining speed) at that time, and the impact of the corona shock hit the entire financial market after the list was published. Partly because the mining company, which became unprofitable, shut down the machine, the difficulty adjustment range has been greatly eased to -15.95%, the largest ever.
F2Pool and Poolin executives said that many miners have to shut down when the Bitcoin halving reached at this level in April this year when BTC was $ 6800 due to the deterioration of all market sentiment. I pointed out.
Effect of electricity bill
In addition to rising prices, the amount of electricity bills also has a major impact on profitability. The latest machines such as AntMiner S17 and S19 and WhatsMiner M20 and M30 are expected to be able to generate more than 60% of revenue (ratio with electricity bill of 40%) even if it costs 0.05kWh of electricity bill per unit.
In such a competitive relationship, operators operating old machines will need cheaper electricity bills. In April, the local government of Sichuan, China, called on various blockchain companies, including miners, to cooperate in order to consume excess electricity during the upcoming flood season "May-September". Was there.
It is obvious that Chinese miners will have the advantage of being able to continue working with cheap electricity in order to keep costs down after the reduction of compensation due to the halving of the Bitcoin.
According to F2Pool data, the average daily mining sales for a halved hash rate is $ 0.07. (1TH / s ≈ 0.00000817 BTC)
After the halving has passed, the biggest focus will be on how the changes in the price of Bitcoin and changes in the electricity bill will affect the survival of businesses that use old-fashioned machines.
Futures trading increased significantly
Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading on April 29 has grown to just over $ 30 billion, according to data from cryptocurrency analyst Skew. This is second only to the volume of the Bitcoin futures market of $ 50 billion at the "Corona Shock" of March 12 when the price of Bitcoin plunged due to the historical fall of the US stock market.
The largest cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, short positions of more than 100 million dollars (10.7 billion yen) were forcibly settled due to this rise.
In addition, since the DDos attack was said to have occurred due to the crash last month and BitMEX went down, the share of the Bitcoin futures market on the exchange has dropped significantly. Binance Futures is the most beneficiary, with futures trading volume doubling from 11% to 24% and total open interest increasing from 4% to 9%.
In terms of recent trading volume, Bitfinex, Binance, and Huobi were the highest, reaching $ 23.2 billion, while BitMEX retreated to $ 5.3 billion. Open interest (OI) has also decreased significantly.
BitMEX skyrocketed due to the announcement that access to Japanese residents will be restricted from May 1, 2020 in order to comply with the Japanese bill "Revised Fund Settlement Act on Virtual Currencies" to be enforced today This has spurred a significant delay in "BTC transactions," which are congested due to the surge in demand for arbitrage transactions.
The 80,000 delay is the largest since 2018 when the crypto bubble burst.
Despite the morning crash, the $/BTC move was very bullish. Funding barely increased, That speaks of the move driven by spot buyers rather than excessive leverage. welcome after + 20% in 24H.
With the unfriendly face of BTC in the cryptocurrency mining industry, a reasonable mining company needs to make a paradigm shift to other more profitable crypto currencies - perhaps BCH.