Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) miners have been sending large amounts of mined tokens to exchanges as their profit margins decline.
What Happened: The crypto bear market has forced a number of miners into selling their coins, according to a report from Bloomberg on Sunday.
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CoinMetrics data compiled by Compass Mining shows that miners sent 195,663 coins to exchanges in May. These coins would have been worth a cumulative $6.3 billion, according to Bloomberg’s estimates.
See Also: WHAT IS CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING?
"Miners may begin to sell hodl'd Bitcoin into the open market," said Compass Mining in a research note.
"At the very least they are feeling the pain after the last major dip in price. Couple this with a downwards difficulty adjustment – indicating miners powering off – and it seems miners may be hitting a wall in profitability."
Among those miners contemplating selling BTC last month were larger crypto mining firms like Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ:RIOT), Core Scientific Inc (NASDAQ:CORZ) and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:MARA).
In an earnings call last month, Core Scientific confirmed that it was lowering its outlook for 2022 and plans to sell some of its 10,000 self-mined BTC.
Riot sold nearly half of the BTC mined in April while Marathon said it was considering selling some BTC holdings to raise the $500 million that it requires for growth objectives.
See Also: How Do Bitcoin Miners Generate Cash Without Selling Crypto Holdings?
Price Action: Bitcoin is currently trading 55% below its all-time high at $30,950, as per data from Benzinga Pro.