Small Bitcoin miners step up sales as market stabilizes
Date: 2025-03-27 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS
Coin Metrics' Q1 2025 analysis report indicates a noticeable increase in the flow of Bitcoin from small miners to exchanges. At the same time, larger market participants demonstrated relative stability in their actions. The situation is developing against the backdrop of a gradual recovery in the industry after the April 2024 halving, which reduced the reward for mining a block.
Coin Metrics experts note that miners have adapted to the new conditions: reduced profits, tighter margins, and a changed operating structure. However, large companies with high capital gained the greatest advantage. They were able to invest in more energy-efficient equipment and move their capacities to regions with cheap electricity. Some of them, including Core Scientific, have diversified their businesses into high-yield AI computing.
The total revenue of Bitcoin network participants in the first quarter reached about $3.6 billion, which is considered a “healthy” figure. At the same time, the share of commissions in this income was only 1.33%, which indicates miners’ dependence on emission rewards.
Analysts emphasize that with a further decrease in block rewards, miners will need to redistribute incentives. The main source of income may be transaction fees, which implies increased competition for inclusion in blocks and an increase in the volume of larger transfers.
The report also highlights several important trends:
• equipment from the Chinese manufacturer Bitmain generates up to 76% of the world's hashrate, which increases the vulnerability of supplies due to international tensions;
• transactions with small amounts (up to $100) account for about 60% of the total, indicating an increase in activity in the micropayments segment;
• second-layer solutions such as Lightning Network, Stacks, and Botanix continue to evolve, improving network scalability and creating new use cases.
Earlier, Bernstein analysts lowered their expectations for Bitcoin mining stocks in 2025, despite predicting the start of a new stage of the crypto bull market. According to them, the catalyst for growth could be the initiatives of the Donald Trump administration.
