In 2022, BTC miners sold almost everything they mined. Analysts speculate that the sale of reserves by major mining companies could influence the fall in Bitcoin’s price.
Between January 1 and November 30, 2022, ten public BTC mining companies mined about 40,700 BTC. And according to a tweet by Messari Analyst Tom Dunleavy, these companies sold at least 40,300 BTC during the year.
So, Dunleavy said that mining firms sold nearly all of the BTC they mined so far this year:
- Core Scientific. ~12,000 BTC mined, over 17,000 BTC sold.
- Riot. ~5,000 BTC mined, just over 2,500 BTC sold.
- Bitfarms. ~5,000 BTC mined, ~7,500 BTC sold.
- Cleans Park. ~4,000 BTC mined, full amount sold.
- Marathon. ~3,500 BTC mined, but the company didn’t sell its stock this year.
- Hut8. ~3,500 BTC mined, no stock sold.
- HIVE. ~3,000 BTC mined, ~1,500 BTC sold.
- Iris Energy. ~2,000 BTC mined, full amount sold.
- Argo. ~2,000 BTC mined, more than 4,000 BTC sold.
- Bit Digital. ~1,500 BTC mined, full amount sold.
Dunleavy also said that such actions of BTC miners this year put significant pressure on the quotations of the first cryptocurrency. However, Arthur Hayes, BitMEX’s ex-CEO, argues this is impossible. “Even if miners sold all the Bitcoin they produced each day, it would barely impact the markets at all,” Hayes wrote in his blog.
Hayes’ opinion is also supported by data from on-chain analytics. One of the biggest sell-offs of BTC miners in 2022 took place on March 29. According to CryptoQuant, fund outflows from miners’ accounts on that day amounted to 3,031 BTC (~$50.63 million). Bitcoin Visuals data shows that BTC daily trading volume totaled $35.2 billion on March 29. Thus, miners’ sell-offs amounted to only about 0.18% of the total trading volume, which can hardly influence Bitcoin’s quotations.
Recall that bearish trends in the crypto market in 2022 reduced BTC mining profitability by 20%. Moreover, the difficulty of mining a BTC block fell by a record 7.32% in December this year. Bitcoin showed the lowest level of volatility in history.
