Heavy Dynamics in BTC Mining – Over 10% Decline

The news comes from the founder of F2pool, Mao Shixing, who calculated that around 10% of Bitcoin miners have stopped working between November 10th and 24th. The significant number for such a short period of time is a total of between 600.000 and 800.000 miners, taking into consideration information coming from larger farms that F2pool has regular interaction.

Looking into more details, on November 10th the BTC network’s entire hash was 47 million, and on November 24th it was 41 million.

Mao and other members of the crypto community attribute the loss of miners to several factors, the most prominent of which is the use of older mining technology. The founder of F2pool believes that at the moment, due to the recent dynamics in the price, miners with older equipment may be losing money and that can be among the causes of the significant drop. Such machines include Antminer T9+ by Bitmain and AvalonMiner 741 by Canaan Creative. Moreover, Chinese manufacturers are continuously improving their products, making older models even more uncompetitive.

Another condition that has changed and thus affected the crypto mining field has been the rise in the price of electric power in China. The country, mostly using hydropower, is currently in its dry season, meaning that scarce water resources result in scarce electricity and double prices. 

The Bitcoin Cash hard fork on November 15th may have also played a role, causing a major market decline.

Nevertheless, Mao said that the drop in the number of active Bitcoin miners doesn’t necessarily mean they have stopped working altogether. The environment is ever-changing and “Bitcoin mining is always a dynamically adjusted process,” Mao added.