Public mining companies have observed a decline in Bitcoin production ranging from 6% to 12% in April following the halving event, according to a report from The Miner Mag. Bitfarms, Cipher, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Riot, and Terawulf were among the major Bitcoin miners affected. However, the report noted that the robust Bitcoin fee market temporarily mitigated the impact of the halving on these companies.
Hut 8, a prominent Bitcoin mining company in North America, reported a significant decrease in its proprietary production for April. In their monthly update, Hut 8 revealed that they mined 148 BTC with their proprietary mining fleet during the month, marking a 36% decrease compared to March. This resulted in a realized hashrate of 3.44 EH/s, a considerable drop of 51% from Hut 8’s peak in December.
While the halving event played a role, Hut 8 primarily attributed the decline in production to the relocation of proprietary miners previously hosted in the Kearney and Granbury sites, which were purchased by Marathon in December. Marathon accelerated the process of vacating the tenants in February, leading to disruptions in Hut 8’s mining operations. Despite this, Hut 8 successfully removed over 25,000 miners in just eight days in April, aiming to minimize downtime.
Hut 8’s CEO, Asher Genoot, shared that the relocated miners have found a new home at the Salt Creek site in Texas, which became operational within a remarkable three-month period since breaking ground. The Salt Creek site has a power capacity of 63 megawatts. Hut 8 also announced an expansion of its total self-mining, hosting, and managed power capacity to over one gigawatt in April, partially due to the energization of a 215-megawatt site in Ward County, Texas.
Following the halving event on April 20, Bitcoin miners, including Riot Platforms, have been adjusting their operations. The event reduced mining rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Markus Thielen, the head of research at 10x Research, estimated that Bitcoin miners have the potential to liquidate approximately $5 billion worth of BTC after the halving. CoinShares analysis suggests that Riot, TeraWulf, and CleanSpark are well-positioned to weather the upcoming challenges.