Bitcoin miners see an increase in earnings to $40 million per day
Bitcoin (BTC) miners’ earnings surged to more than $40 million a day on Wednesday after the latest surge in the cryptocurrency’s price took its year-to-date (YTD) gain to nearly 70%. The revenue jump was also partially fueled by elevated Bitcoin network fees fueled by recent interest in Ordinals.
Bitcoin Miners’ Earnings See Meteoric Rise Amidst BTC YTD Gains
Bitcoin miners are generating revenue at the fastest pace in more than a year as the cryptocurrency’s YTD gains soar to nearly 70% and transaction fees continue to rise amid recent demand for Ordinal Inscriptions, also referred to as Bitcoin NFTs. Currently, Bitcoin miners bring in about $40 million a day, according to data from Blockchain.com.
The surge in revenue comes as the world’s largest cryptocurrency saw its price nearly double from $16,605 at the start of the year, marking a sharp rebound from the 2022 lows as a result of arguably the worst crypto winter ever. Similarly, Bitcoin miners’ earnings have also recovered remarkably after plunging below $10 billion daily in December 2022.
On Wednesday, BTC rose another 1.5% after a new consumer price index (CPI) report showed that inflation fell more than expected in April. At the time of writing, the BTC price was at $28,171, up almost 2% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin is now close to regaining the $30,000 psychological threshold it reached last month for the first time since June 2022.
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Demand for Bitcoin Ordinals contributes to revenue growth
Aside from Bitcoin’s price rise, increased transaction fees on the blockchain contributed significantly to the recent jump in miners’ earnings. Earlier this month, daily fees on the Bitcoin chain soared to $3.5 million, the highest since May 2021.
One of the main factors driving the rising fees is the unprecedented demand for Bitcoin ordinals, digital assets that can be written in one satoshi – the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin. These so-called Bitcoin NFTs have attracted significant interest since the start of 2023 and have continued to do so in recent months, surpassing the 3 million mark.
But not everyone in the Bitcoin community shares the same enthusiasm for Ordinals, causing a bottleneck on the Bitcoin network. On May 10, several Bitcoin developers thought of changing the Bitcoin codebase to kill Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens – a newly released token standard that allows fungible tokens to be minted and transferred on the Bitcoin blockchain.
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About the author
Tim Fries is the co-founder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate in the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division and is also a co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
