Bitcoin, considered the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization, will be exiting the month of November with trading prices that are significantly lower than what it had the same time last year.
It can be recalled that in November 10, 2021, BTC was able to hit its milestone all-time high (ATH) of $69,044.
Sadly, the crypto asset has already lost 76% of that value as it is changing hands at only $16,582 according to Coingecko at the time of this writing. On a year-to-date basis, the maiden digital coin is down by 71.3% as it is nowhere close to its impressive performance last year.
Bitcoin’s struggles were recently compounded by the implosion of the FTX crypto exchange platform that wiped the entire crypto market of almost $200 billion in terms of overall valuation.
Along this line, Bitcoin miners feel greater pressure as they continue to deal with the perpetual problems it started to face the moment the industry came to life.
Massive Liquidations By Bitcoin Miners
Quantitative asset management firm Capriole Fund founder Charles Edwards recently noted that he observed aggressive selling of Bitcoin miners which drastically increased by an astonishing 400% this month.
It’s a Bitcoin miner bloodbath.
Most aggressive miner selling in almost 7 years now.
Up 400% in just 3 weeks!If price doesn’t go up soon, we are going to see a lot of Bitcoin miners out of business. pic.twitter.com/4ePh0TIPmZ
— Charles Edwards (@caprioleio) November 21, 2022
Image: The European Business Review
At this point, miners are dealing with three perennial challenges in carrying out their ordeal to produce the most precious cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, leading to their current and unfortunate situation.
The first is that it is getting more difficult for miners to mine the next block when hash rates near their peak levels.
The second concern is energy costs which, up to this day, remain extremely high most of the time, lowering profit margins for companies involved in the business.
In fact, Iris Energy, an Australian company, was forced to halt the operation of its Bitcoin mining hardware after being left with a gaping $108 million debt.
Finally, the current price of BTC. As mentioned earlier, it is still feeling the effects of the prevailing bear market, struggling to even just breach the $17K marker as of this time.
Hash Rates Spike Despite The Difficulties
Although Bitcoin miners are in a dire situation right now, their performance remains impressive as global hash rate continues to go up.
According to blockchain.com, the network is registering a hash rate of 261 EH/s (exahashes per second). On November 2, just right before the FTX drama started, Bitcoin mining hash rate peaked at 273 EH/s.
This is even after China cracked down on BTC miners operating inside its territory last year that caused their exodus and relocation in other business-friendly countries.
Crypto total market cap at $788 billion on the daily chart | Featured image from Coin Edition, Chart: TradingView.com