1 billion turnover: Bitcoin miners experience New Years boom
No time right now?
Most Bitcoin miners are likely to have started 2021 more than satisfied given the high sales figures. But they cannot benefit from the upswing everywhere.
The mining industry is booming. Show that numbers by The Block. According to this, Bitcoin miners recorded total sales of about 1.12 billion US dollars in January of this year. This year’s sales even exceed the sales of January 2018 (1.02 billion dollars) and are just behind the record sales from December 2017 (1.25 billion dollars).
It is interesting that the share of the so-called block subsidy has increased enormously compared to the comparative values from January 2018 (814.73 million dollars) and December 2017 (954.38 million dollars). The proportion of “pure” Bitcoin mined is now breaking the billion mark for the first time. The turnover from transaction fees has increased compared to the previous months, but in relation to the previous record months the share from January 2021 remained relatively low. In December 2017, transactions accounted for 296.36 million dollars in the total turnover of Bitcoin miners. As early as January 2018, this ratio decreased to $ 204.25 million. Three years later, that portion is now $ 116.07 million.
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Miner pays subsidy to Bitcoin maintainer
Meanwhile, miners are also subsidizing developers who are working on improvements to the Bitcoin network. The Swiss Bitcoin maintainer Jonas Schnelli recently received a grant of 96,000 dollars from the Nasdaq miner Marathon Patent Group. Regarding the payment, Schnelli said, “It’s an acceptable salary. However, much less than I could get as a software developer in a company. But I’m there because of the Bitcoin ethos and not because of the money. ”Schnelli wants to use the money to continue to implement improvements on the Bitcoin network.
Iran closes crypto farms
Meanwhile, the crypto year 2021 begins catastrophically for most private miners in Iran, because the mullah state is currently cracking down on crypto miners. The Gulf state is currently suffering from recurring power failures. The Islamic Republic sees the blame for this on illegal miners, who used too much electricity and overloaded the network. With that, Iran is returning to conditions like in the year 2019 back. Since the country banned the mining of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies without further ado, because of an also too high energy consumption.
After the USA and the EU imposed new sanctions on Iran in 2020, the government in Tehran legalized Bitcoin mining again, but only for licensed operators. The Iranian regime used this method to try to circumvent the sanctions. With the help of a government subsidy program for electricity prices, it became a popular mining location. According to the University of Cambridge Iran currently ranks sixth in the international mining ranking.
Now the Iranian law enforcement agencies seem to be taking even stronger action against illegal miners. According to the Associated Press, Iranian police have closed around 1,600 mining farms in the country. Like the Iranian news agency Tasnim News Agency reported that around 45,000 mining computers were confiscated in the raids.
Critics accuse Iran of distracting from a fundamental structural problem. Above all the Iranian scientist and former politician Kaveh Madani. He said that Bitcoin was an easy victim and that “years of mismanagement” were responsible for the current situation.
author of the article is Daniel Hoppmann.
