Bitcoin miners enter August after modest revenue rebound

July bitcoin mining revenue rose to $875.35 million, an increase of $38.93 million from June. Hashprice stood at $31.59 per PH/s. When power and other operating costs are included, miner margins remain narrow.

Monthly revenue figures show April at $947.26 million, May at $1.086 billion, June at $836.41 million and July at $875.35 million. June represented a 23% decline from May.

Bitcoin’s market price was up about 1.6% over the prior 30 days and down about 2.2% over the previous two weeks. Transaction fees accounted for a small share of total mining revenue while block rewards provided the majority of income.

BIP-110 enters a signaling window around Aug. 8–9. Support for the proposal was near 2% at the start of that window.

Bitcoin’s next difficulty adjustment is estimated at roughly a 1.87% increase and is expected to take effect around the same time as the BIP-110 signaling period.

A planned eCash fork using the SHA-256 algorithm, proposed by Paul Sztorc, is scheduled later in August. New SHA-256 chains typically start with lower mining difficulty. Miners have at times allocated hashpower to new chains while their difficulty remained low.

Shifts in hashpower between chains change the amount of work required per Bitcoin block and can alter short-term receipts on each chain until difficulty resets. Mining operators set equipment allocation based on immediate revenue relative to operating costs.

The article uses early-August records of monthly mining revenue and hashprice. The difficulty adjustment, BIP-110 signaling and the eCash fork are expected to overlap in timing during August.