Bitcoin Miner Mayhem As On-Chain Fees Drop 90% In Two Months

Reynaldo Marquez

1 year ago

2 mins read

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Bitcoin has been struck by the bears for its third consecutive week. At the time of writing, BTC has lost two critical support zones at $35,000 and $32,000. The first cryptocurrency by market cap trades at $31,987 with a 10.5% correction in the daily chart.

The general sentiment in the market seems bearish, as BTC failed to gain a strong foothold on the high area around current levels. A report by Arcane Research concluded the recent correction follows a week with low exchange activity, a dropped in on-chain activity, and “futures premiums have almost gone”.

The research estimates that on-chain activity has descended by around 69% since the beginning of May and the end of April. As consequence, BTC network fees also declined by almost 93%, as seen in the chart below.

The average daily transaction on Bitcoin’s network has gone from $62 in April to $4.38 at the beginning of June. At the same time, the 7-day average mempool transaction has reached its lowest levels since April 2020, as Arcane Research determined.

This has coincided with the mining sector increasing their BTC sales. After China placed new limitations on the sector for certain BTC mining activities at a grand scale, some miners were forced to relocate their operations. Therefore, seems logical that they sold part of their holding to obtain liquidity for expenses.

Lex Moskovski, CIO at Moskovski Capital, said that around 8,545 BTC left miners’ wallets in the last 4 days. The increase in selling pressure has contributed to the recent crash.

Bitcoin Long Term Holders Seize Buying Opportunity

Where some see fear, mayhem, and disarray, others see a chance to accumulate. Data from Glassnode suggest that the total Bitcoin supply held by long-term holders has been on a rise after reaching a plateau during March 2021.

As seen in the chart below, the rise in these metrics went parabolic as of mid-May when BTC’s price took its worst hit. These investors bought more than all the BTC supply sold by short-term investors. Analyst William Clemente believes this number to be around 217,194 BTC. Clemente said:

Selling from short-term holders had been offsetting buying from long-term, but now long-term holders buying is offsetting short-term hodlers selling.

Further data recorded by Glassnode indicates that 744,000 BTC have been withdrawn from exchange platforms into cold wallets since March 2020, when BTC’s price dropped to $3,000.

During May and part of June 160.700 BTC of this supply has returned to the market. Although an important increase, it only represents 22% of the overall supply that has gone cold. Analyst Checkmate believes this sell-off is a change in conviction by a portion of the market.

The fact that long-term holders have returned to accumulate Bitcoin it’s a bullish sign, but the analyst believes there could be similarities between this behavior and an accumulation period in the 2018 bear market.

As seen in the fractal below, after a prologue distribution in early 2021, long-term holders can continue to accumulate while the price moves sideways or trends downwards. The analyst added:

This fractal describes the inflection point where LTHs stop spending, start re-accumulating and hodling what are now considered cheap coins.

Reynaldo Marquez

A literature major, Reynaldo Márquez has been deeply immersed in the crypto industry since 2017. His journey began with translating articles for various crypto news outlets, a role he took on with zeal. In 2018, amidst a challenging market, he embraced his first writing assignment, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the nascent industry and the promise of change it bears for many people worldwide.
In March 2021, he joined the prestigious crypto news outlet NewsBTC and Bitcoinist, where he not only reported on the latest crypto news but also had the privilege of interviewing some of the industry's most influential figures. A year later, his dedication and hard work were recognized, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position he currently holds with pride.
He believes in honesty, good communication, hard work, and the power of cryptocurrency and its potential to transform people's lives, especially those alienated by the legacy financial system. Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Reynaldo is familiar with how governments and central banks can negatively affect people, their everyday lives, and their futures by creating inflation and erasing their hopes for a better future. Thus, like many Venezuelans, he embraced this new technology to help him and his family navigate difficult times.
In another life, Reynaldo would have pursued a career as an investigator, most likely tracking down the origins of the Cyberpunk movement with the publication of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer.’ The intersection between fiction and reality, with the materialization of Bitcoin in 2009, would have allowed him to dive deep into the crypto sphere as something more than a financial phenomenon but also a cultural shift in society that was brewing since the XX century, and maybe even sooner, in the XIX century with the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.’
But that’s for another life. In this one, Reynaldo has been trading to improve his trading skills. Since 2023, he has been trying to learn Python to create successful strategies and find ways to execute them. It is a difficult task, which continues to keep him busy today and will most likely continue to keep him busy in the near and long term.
In his free time, he enjoys lifting heavy objects, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite music. Some of his favorite authors are Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Rafael Cadenas, and many others. Lately, he has been primarily interested in reading about dystopic societies, a topic that deeply resonates with the crypto industry.
Since 2023, he has lived in Spain with his wife. He loves the weather, the food, and the people and their culture. They both expect to travel much more within the country they now call home and beyond its border. He hopes to retire with his wife, maybe in a quiet place near a beach, but most likely in a city close to a library and a university with his kids and, hopefully, grandkids.

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