🔷 The Bitcoin network has seen a sharp increase in transaction fees due to 332,000 unconfirmed transactions. The fees surged to 520 satoshis per transaction, approximately $50–52 USD. Following this spike, priority transaction fees decreased to around $46 per transaction.
🔷 The halving of the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC at the end of April has had a significant impact on miner profitability. Bitfarms reported a 42% decline in mining revenues for May. A Bitcoin miner also noted that unusually low temperatures at their facility in Argentina in May led to an eight-day shutdown of the company’s Rio Cuarto operation.
🔷 Since the beginning of 2024, Bitcoin miners in the U.S. have spent a total of $2.7 billion on electricity, despite rising mining difficulty and reduced rewards. According to analyst Paul Hoffman, the amount of energy consumed by Bitcoin miners in 2024 so far could power 1.5% of U.S. households for an entire year.