The extended crypto winter has created turmoil for Bitcoin in the price chart as it continuously trades in a consolidated range below $19.6K.
Therefore, monitoring the on-chain activity of leading digital assets like Bitcoin is essential to better understand the crypto market’s sentiments. Furthermore, the policies made by the Federal Reserve (FED) mark a significant factor for Bitcoin’s further price momentum.
Therefore, the upcoming FOMC meeting on 2 November will be vital for the stock and crypto markets as both are interconnected. Furthermore, there is an internal risk also as the bitcoin mining difficulty soars over 3% to make an all-time high.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Continues To Attain New Highs!
The bearish trend of Bitcoin has brought tough competition to Bitcoin miners as the mining difficulty jumps by 3.44% and hits an all-time high of 36.835 trillion hashes.
However, the latest spike is not as significant as the previous one, as the mining difficulty increased by 13.55% on 10 October.
The difficulty of mining bitcoin depends on the computational power needed to mine one bitcoin. The network fluctuates hash power, making it harder or easier to mine a block every ten minutes.
The recent spike in mining difficulty indicates further adjustments to the network, creating more pressure on Bitcoin miners to continue their same mining profitability.
Will Clemente, the co-founder of Reflexivity Research, said, “Miners are the biggest intra-Bitcoin market risk right now IMO.”
According to him, this is a pre-planned steady rise, and a well-funded player is controlling it to eliminate inefficient miners from the network and buy their assets at a cheap rate, “Rockefeller-style”.
He added that the increasing mining difficulty might lead to miners’ capitulation, where small-cap miners would be forced to sell off their Bitcoin holdings and mining hardware.
This incident could trigger high selling pressure in the Bitcoin price chart, which might lead to increased volatility and a significant loss. Clemente said that the tendency of a second miner capitulation is getting an inch closer every day after June.
He added, “Thinking about who this entity(s) is that feels that it’s advantageous to mine with BTC price down 70%, energy prices high, & hashprice at all-time lows.
Wonder if its a large player(s) with excess energy or access to dirt-cheap energy. Miner margins are so compressed right now, and it isn’t a great time to be mining on a short to mid-term basis.”
Industrial Bitcoin Miners To Struggle
The increase in Bitcoin mining difficulty may bring some trouble for big industry players in generating their expected revenue.
Dylan LeClair, a senior analyst at UTXO Management and co-founder of 21stParadigm, highlighted that miners’ revenue per TeraHash has made a low since 2020.
He mentioned that he had heard some juicy rumors about some big names in Bitcoin mining facing troubles due to mining difficulties.
The current mining pressure may end up in two scenarios.
LeClair stated, “This is the bottom. The lack of vol shows apathy from sellers. Extended consolidation/accumulation period, or we are at 6k level in 18/19. Hash rate continues to soar, increasing pressure on miners until ultimate puke.”
The next report on mining difficulty may come on or after 6 November, and there are nearly 79.9K blocks which are left to be mined until the next block subsidy halving.
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Source: https://coinpedia.org/bitcoin/be-aware-bitcoins-biggest-intra-market-risk-is-here-this-can-take-bitcoin-to-the-bottom/