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BTC miners face the heat, but HODLers continue to show faith

Bitcoin mining companies started to see trouble as revenues declined. Analytics firm MicroStrategy continued to HODL significant amounts of BTC.

The recent surge in Bitcoin’s [BTC] value has been a boon for miners as they did not have to worry about selling their holdings. Nevertheless, the press time situation of several leading mining companies suggested that this favorable situation for miners might not last much longer.

As per its most recent filing with the SEC, Bitfarms, a significant player in Bitcoin mining, said it incurred a loss of $239 million in 2022. Similarly, Bitdeer and other mining companies also faced setbacks, with Bitdeer’s valuation plummeting from $4 billion to $1.18 billion in the last 3 years.

Blockchain.com’s data shows that miners were facing difficulties as their revenue declined in recent days, reaching a figure of $26,143,030. This was another sign that miners were struggling to generate income.

Source: Blockchain.com

However, despite the volatility faced by miners, some maximalists continued to buy and HODL BTC.

Microstrategy, an analytics company famous for its substantial holdings of BTC, purchased and retained a significant amount of Bitcoin. As per their 8-K report, between 16 February – 23 March, 2023, Microstrategy procured around 6,455 bitcoins using cash worth about $150 million, at an average cost of $23,238.

As of 23 March, Microstrategy owned 138,955 bitcoins, purchased for a combined price of $4.14 billion and an average cost of $29,817.

Glassnode’s data revealed another sign of institutional interest in BTC, which was the increasing number of addresses joining the BTC network. The number of addresses holding more than 1 BTC surged, reaching a record high of 990,449 at the time of writing.

Source: glassnode

Uncertainties ahead?

Even though whale interest in BTC rose, there were some concerning factors which revealed that things could go south for Bitcoin in the short term.

According to crypto analyst James V. Straten, the correlation between Bitcoin and macro assets has started to rise. James states that a high correlation between BTC and TradFi assets suggests a growing uncertainty within the crypto space.

When we had market uncertainty in TradFi, #Bitcoin started to decouple from traditional finance assets.

But when uncertainty starts to creep in within crypto #Bitcoin starts to correlate back to macro assets. #Bitcoin correlation with S&P, Nasdaq, and TLT approaching feb… pic.twitter.com/Uibyaf9gVY

— James V. Straten (@jimmyvs24) March 27, 2023

This could be one reason why trader sentiment turned negative towards BTC. According to Coinglass’ data, the short positions taken against Bitcoin have increased over the last few days.

Source: Coinglass

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