The increasing operating costs are forcing miners to sell their earnings. As electricity prices go up and the price ofBitcoin follows its downtrend, miners can't afford to HODL anymore.
The sell-off trend started in early 2022, as shown by the chart above. At the time, experts said that miners sold their earnings because they believed thatBitcoin would continue to fall.
They were right. Mining equipment manufactured before 2019 lost profitability when it hit its 18 month low on June 14. The minimum profitability price for a 2021 model Antminer S 19 j is about $20,170 at the time of writing.
Public Bitcoin miners receive around 900 Bitcoins a day, according to Arcane Research. They tend to hold as much as possible and become some of the largest whales on the market.
The increasing energy costs and decreasingBitcoin prices put public miners in a tough spot.
The numbers showed that the public mining companies sold 30% of their productions ofBitcoin during the first four months of 2022.
Digital asset broker GlobalBlock analyst Marcus Sotiriou commented on the sell-off trend and said that the main reason for the sale was:
Another Glassnode analyst pointed out that other miners have been sellers as well. He said something.
Experts note that this is usually how miners behave during the bear markets despite the gravity of the data pointing out a sell-off trend.
Miners tend to accumulate in bull markets and sell during bear to cover interest payments or pay for higher costs. In the last bear market in November 2018, miners sold a large amount of their coins, while the price ofBitcoin was falling.