According to CryptoPotato, nearly a month after the fourth Bitcoin halving, the first signs of a decrease in miners' revenues are slowly emerging. The network hash rate's drop is a clear indicator of this trend, potentially signaling miner capitulation, where less efficient miners quit due to decreased profitability. The 30-day moving average of the hash rate previously peaked at 630 exahashes per second (EH/s), but it has now dropped to 606 EH/s. This decrease, although relatively small and brief, is significant as the hash rate usually increases, indicating a shift in the pattern.
CryptoQuant's analysis revealed instances of rapid declines in the hash rate, often signaling 'miner capitulation.' This term refers to less efficient miners exiting the process, shutting down their rigs, and reducing the computational power for mining. They may also relocate or sell recently mined bitcoin to cover their operational expenses. The Hash Ribbons indicator, which operates under the assumption that these conditions often coincide with substantial BTC price declines, was highlighted in CryptoQuant's analysis. However, it's important to note that this doesn't happen immediately after the initial capitulation signal from Hash Ribbons. Instead, the process of miner capitulation is steady and happens gradually over the subsequent days and weeks as less efficient miners leave the market.
The halving event on April 20 cut the block reward in half to 3.125 BTC, reducing mining output from 900 BTC to around 450 BTC per day. As a result, major Bitcoin miners such as Bitfarms, Cipher, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Riot, and Terawulf experienced production drops of 6% to 12% in April. These output reductions have coincided with a decline in profitability, or 'hash price,' which has decreased to $0.049 per terahash per second per day, according to HashRateIndex. This represents a drop of over 73% from the $0.182 TH/s/day level seen around the halving. Such a scenario also spells trouble for Bitcoin's price as sell-off concerns loom amidst increasing pressure faced by miners.