After revenues fell to their lowest levels of the year in September, Bitcoin miners had a profitable October, recording a 25.05% increase in revenues.
October Return of Bitcoin Mining
On October 31, hashing power of one petahash per second (PH/s) was valued at $54.52 per PH/s, the highest hash price in 30 days. However, as of today, the spot market hash price is approximately $46.55/PH/s after Bitcoin fell below $70,000 to the $69,400 range. The data also shows that the hash price also surpassed $53 on October 17th.
In total, Bitcoin miners earned 25.05% more in October than in September. That month, miners earned $815.7 million from Bitcoin fees and subsidies combined. In October, revenue grew to $1.02 billion, of which $975.22 million came from block rewards and $47.39 million from chain fees.
The jump from September’s $13.86 million in chain fees to $47.39 million in October represents an increase of 241.91%. At the same time, Bitcoin’s overall computing power is at an all-time high. Statistics for November 1, 2024 show that Bitcoin’s seven-day simple moving average (SMA) is a whopping 765 exahashes per second (EH/s).
Current block intervals are moving faster than the normal 10-minute average at 9 minutes and 18 seconds. This faster pace indicates a likely 7.5% difficulty jump, with the update expected around November 4, 2024, with over 340 blocks still to be mined before the reassignment.
As October ends with Bitcoin miners seeing strong revenue growth and hashrate growth, the mining sector now faces both potential challenges and opportunities. Given the unprecedented levels of computing power and shorter intervals between blocks, an increase in difficulty seems inevitable, setting the stage for a new phase of network development that will arrive in early November.
