Crypto Mining Shakeup: Older Generation Rigs Hit Shutdown Price Threshold
Bitcoin miners face a brutal reckoning as legacy hardware becomes unprofitable at current prices.
The economics no longer compute—older ASICs now burn more in electricity than they mine in value. A Darwinian moment for mining ops clinging to outdated gear.
Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts suggest this might actually 'improve network health' while quietly shorting mining stocks. Classic.
Outdated miners are packing up
The announcement comes as miners are ditching the older generation of bitcoin mining equipment because of limiting factors like higher power draw and lower hash rates.
Small and mid-sized miners that can’t boast scale like giants like Marathon Digital or Riot Platforms have been getting shut down the most, with the less efficient legacy equipment being idled first to preserve cash flow.
This has reportedly contributed to a slight dip in global hashrate with operators prioritizing newer, energy-efficient rigs. About half of the network’s miners were already at or NEAR “shutdown prices” as of earlier this year, but the current dip has been fanning the flames.
How the mining industry is faring amid the current BTC dip
The current dip makes it the third time Bitcoin has dipped beneath the $100,000 mark in November, and that has strengthened fearmongers who have been calling the top for weeks on end.
The fall has also affected Bitcoin mining stock prices, which were swept up in a wider market sell-off on Friday that drained nearly $8 billion from the cohort’s collective market capitalization in one day.
Miners Bitdeer Technologies Group and Bitfarms have reported dumps of 20% and 17%, respectively, in their share prices, while Cipher Mining’s fell 13%. Even Mara Holdings, which holds the most Bitcoin among miners, was down over 10%.
According to BitcoinMiningStock.io, a platform that tracks metrics for 34 publicly traded Bitcoin mining stocks, the sector’s market cap dropped from $69.1 billion to $61.3 billion between November 12 and November 13.
Week-over-week, the cohort’s total capitalization is down 22% from $78.7 billion, and they’re down an extra 35% from the all-time high capitalization of $94.2 billion they achieved on October 15.
Bitcoin miners who had dipped into AI were affected more than most. Many in the cohort had declined by double digits already, but Thursday’s price action made things worse, making it one of the most brutal weeks for the sector.
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