Bitcoin miners sell BTC en masse while incurring losses

As the Bitcoin price falls back towards $60K in June, selling pressure from miners increases significantly. With estimated production costs of $76K per Bitcoin and a current price of around $64K, most miners are operating at a loss, and this is clearly reflected in the data.

Bitcoin is available at OKX and Bybit.

Hashrate declines, selling pressure rises

Even before the recent price decline, miners were struggling. Since late October, the hashrate has fallen by about 28%, indicating that some miners are scaling back or diversifying their operations to reduce costs. This mechanically leads to a difficulty adjustment of around 20% over the same period.

To cover operational costs, miners are forced to sell their BTC, even if the timing is not ideal. That pattern was already visible in February, when the price dropped below $60K. On 5 February alone, miners sent more than 24,000 BTC to Binance. The monthly average thereby shot up from around 5,000 BTC to more than 8,000 BTC per day.

Another large inflow of miners to Binance

The same pattern is repeating itself in June. Over four days, inflows of more than 10,000 BTC per day were recorded on Binance, with a peak of 12,800 BTC. As a result, the monthly average rises from 4,700 BTC to 7,100 BTC. Analyst Darkfost points out that the amounts are large enough to noticeably affect the Bitcoin price.

The situation fits into a broader trend of downward pressure on the market. For instance, Wintermute warns that the Bitcoin price could fall further towards $50K, while demand for Bitcoin reaches a record negative level. At the same time, the price forms a range between $60K and $65K, reflecting market uncertainty. As long as Bitcoin trades well below miners’ production costs, selling pressure from this side will remain a factor to contend with.