Bitcoin miners are reaping significant profits due to increased transaction fees, which have reached levels not seen since April 2021, fueled by a growing demand for ordinal transactions. This positive momentum in the market throughout the year has served as a valuable recovery for miners, compensating for the challenges faced during the unfavorable conditions of 2022.
Consequently, miners have capitalized on this month’s remarkable surge, offloading over 3,000 BTC in the last 24 hours, equivalent to approximately $129 million. According to recent CryptoQuant data shared by analyst Ali Martinez, there has been a continuous decline in Bitcoin miners’ reserves since the beginning of December.
These significant investments by miners have the potential to influence Bitcoin’s price dynamics. Such large-scale transactions over a short period often attract the attention of market participants and analysts, leading to speculation about their potential impact on the broader market. Currently, Bitcoin miners hold approximately 1.834 million BTC, with the latest sale of 3,000 BTC.
Bitcoin miners are keeping pace with the new BRC-20 token standard wave, which has driven up transaction fees. Miners are accumulating extra profits in satoshis by capitalizing on this trend. Early this month, it was reported that three leading Bitcoin mining pools, which constitute the majority of the market share, derived nearly a third of their profits solely from transaction fees.
Foundry USA, commanding 26% of the market, averaged 3.23 BTC per block in transaction fees during this period. Meanwhile, its largest competitor based in Beijing, Antpool, collected an average of 3.26 BTC per block. In 2023, Bitcoin miners have been making an average of $2 million in daily transaction fee revenue, which could indicate a significant 400% increase compared to the previous year’s averages. Coin Metrics data has revealed that Bitcoin miners’ total revenue in 2023 exceeded $10 billion, contributing to the $57 billion total revenue accumulated over the last 14 years.
In December, miners witnessed a peak in total daily revenue, reaching $64 million annually, including block rewards and transaction fee incomes. Since the beginning of December, daily mining operation revenue consistently remained above $33.85 million, indicating a profitable trend for miners in the fourth quarter of 2023. Coin Metrics also reported that quarterly mining revenues in 2023 surpassed $2 billion in the last three years, with transaction fees collected by miners exceeding $180 million in both the second and fourth quarters.