Bitcoin – Is MARA’s $87M BTC move more evidence of miner distress?

Bitcoin’s recent price drop to sub-$60k intensified miner distress significantly across the board. 

During the mid-week dump, on-chain data showed that MARA, a publicly listed BTC miner, moved $87 million (1,318 BTC) to centralized exchanges, possibly for a sell-off.  

According to Bitcoin Treasuries, the miner held 53,250 BTC at the time of writing, making it the second-largest public company holding BTC after Strategy. 

That said, AMBCrypto had previously noted a hike in miner sell-offs in January, with the daily average hitting 10k BTC as the price struggled below $80k. 

Now that Bitcoin’s price has melted lower, AMBCrypto evaluated the extent of miner distress and whether possible relief is likely. 

Bitcoin miner revenue drops to 2024 levels

Miner capitulation always occurs when the overall mining cost of BTC becomes unbearable from a business perspective. Electricity drives most of the cost, but rising network hashrate and falling BTC prices can also be catalysts.

Collectively, this shrinks the revenue and overall miner profitability, forcing them either to shut down or dump BTC.

At the time of writing, daily miner revenue had dropped to $28.3 million, the level last seen in Q3 2024 – A whopping 36% decline on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. 

The miner’s revenue free fall reinforced that the sector’s distress was still on. 

In fact, according to the Hash Ribbons metric, which tracks this capitulation, the miner crisis (shaded areas) began in late November when BTC dropped below $100k. 

For potential relief, the hashrate’s 30-day MA (Moving Average, blue) always crosses above the 60-day MA (purple). 

At the time of writing though, the 30-day MA had widened further from the 60-day MA after an extended price decline below $70k, signalling that miner distress was far from over. 

In other words, price rebounds could attract more miner dumps, potentially capping a strong, sustainable BTC recovery. This might trigger a price drop or an extended consolidation. 

Will miners pressure BTC?

Here, it’s worth pointing out that such a scenario might be be playing out in February.

Notably, the 14-day SMA Miner Outflows, which tracks miner sell-offs, has shot up over the past six days – Reaching a yearly high of 10.75k BTC. 

This implied that miners’ sell-offs might be gathering pace and may derail the odds of a strong price recovery, unless the metric eases. 

Final Thoughts

• MARA seemed to have sold part of its BTC holdings amid miner distress as BTC’s price dropped below $70k. 
•  BTC miner revenue declined by 36% and rising miner sell-offs could keep the price range-bound.