Bitcoin miners experienced a significant decline in revenue in August, marking the lowest earnings month since September 2023. According to data, miners earned approximately $827.56 million last month, which represents a decline of over 10.5% from July’s revenue of $927.35 million. In comparison, this figure shows a modest increase of 5% from August 2023. Notably, the revenue for August reflects a staggering 57% decrease from the peak earnings in March 2024, which were nearly $1.93 billion during a time when Bitcoin reached its all-time high of over $73,500.
This recent revenue slump is reminiscent of September 2023, where miners earned $727.79 million, coinciding with Bitcoin ’s price remaining around $25,000. Since that time, Bitcoin ’s value has more than doubled, trading at approximately $57,315 as of the latest updates. As revenues declined in August, the total number of mined Bitcoin also decreased slightly, falling from around 14,725 BTC in July to 13,843 BTC.
Several factors contributed to this drop in revenue, including decreased transaction volumes and increased mining difficulty, which intensified following April’s Bitcoin halving event. The halving reduced the rewards for mining Bitcoin by 50%, down to 3.125 BTC. Furthermore, the median fees contributing to block rewards remained low, averaging just 2% throughout August.
The daily average of confirmed transactions also declined, peaking at nearly 631,648 in late July before dropping to around 594,871 by the end of August. Simultaneously, mining difficulty surged, reaching an unprecedented level of 89.47 trillion, an increase from 86.87 trillion in July. This challenging environment has led some miners to explore alternative revenue streams, such as providing computing power for artificial intelligence projects, which have proven lucrative.