The average transaction fees for Bitcoin were at a minimum level in August. The Bitcoin hash rate and mining difficulty have been steadily increasing.

During August, many Bitcoin miners migrated from China to the United States and elsewhere. The increase in the Bitcoin hash rate and mining difficulty suggests more hardware is connecting to the network.

Fees for Bitcoin transactions were small during June and July due to low congestion on the network. That affected the finances of the miners, whose income decreased compared to the fees paid by users. Meanwhile, they continue to receive the newly created 6.25 BTC with each new block on the chain.

However, there was a rise and stabilization in the price of BTC during July and August at USD 40,000. That could be protecting the investments and businesses of miners since the value of the cryptocurrency exceeds USD 46,000 per unit.

The Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Increases for the Fourth Consecutive Time

Data from Bitcoin Visuals reveals that the Bitcoin mining difficulty is 18T, close to its all-time high of 25T in May.

The latest Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment occurred at block 699,552. The following adjustment has an estimated date of September 20th.

The hash rate, or the ability of miners to process transactions and confirm them successfully, has been increasing since June. However, its increase has accelerated in some periods, as happened during the first week of September.

Ycharts indicates that the hash rate increased from 119 EH/s on September 1st to 150 EH/s on September 6th. That increase is considerable for such a short period. The current mining power of Bitcoin miners is 129.91 EH/s, according to that same source.

ASIC Equipment Reduces Its Profitability but Increases the Price

The profitability of mining equipment has many variables, such as the cost of electrical service, age, and performance. Besides, miners must pay taxes and operating expenses for labor, maintenance, logistics, and repairs, among others.

For example, the MicroBT Whatsminer M30S generated USD 33.61 daily, but now it generates close to USD 20 daily. Meanwhile, the classic Bitmain AntMiner S9, which is still profitable despite its age, generates USD 2.72 a day. However, it generated USD 6 just two weeks ago.

The prices for mining equipment are rising and will continue to increase. Bitmain would raise the cost of its equipment by 20%, as would leading manufacturers of microprocessors and integrated circuits (chips).

Although the costs are higher, a growing number of people are venturing Bitcoin mining from home. Many of them have installed mining machines, using clever energy-saving and consumption alternatives.

Bitcoin Consumes 0.1% of the Electric Power of the World

Analyst and macroeconomist Lyn Alden argued Bitcoin does not consume the energy levels indicated by some non-specialized media. The electrical engineer noted that Bitcoin consumes less energy than Google, Facebook, or YouTube. In addition, she explained that the security that energy provides to Bitcoin justifies its level of consumption.

Haipo Yang, CEO of ViaBTC mining pool, agreed with the remarks by Alden. He argued that Bitcoin emits less CO2 than the Internet, but its detractors ignore it since the latter is in all areas of life.

By Alexander Salazar

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