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With the spotlight this cycle fixed on corporate Bitcoin treasuries, ETF inflows, and shifting global liquidity, Bitcoin’s miners have become the overlooked backbone of the network.

Yet, as block rewards shrink and energy costs rise, many are being forced to reinvent themselves, branching into AI hosting, energy arbitrage, and infrastructure services, just to keep their rigs running and the chain secure.

Bitcoin only pays 3.125 BTC per block from the subsidy, so transaction fees are now the primary driver of miner revenue and network security.

That dependency is evident in today’s data points. The seven-day hashrate sits near 1.12 zettahashes per second, with network difficulty at approximately 155 trillion.

Over the last 144 blocks, miners earned approximately 453 BTC in total rewards, equivalent to roughly $45 million, given a spot price of around $101,000.

The average fees per block were approximately 0.021 BTC, a small share of miner income, according to the mempool.space mining dashboard.

Hashprice derivatives point to a constrained near-term revenue environment. Luxor’s forward curve implies about $43.34 per petahash per day for October, down from $47.25 in late September.

Fee demand remains choppy. Following the April 2024 halving spike, which was tied to the launch of Runes, with ViaBTC’s halving block capturing more than 40 BTC from subsidy and fees combined, baseline fees eased over the summer.

Galaxy Research wrote in August that on-chain fees had collapsed to near-historic lows despite price strength, characterizing the fee market as anything but robust.

Pool policy amplifies that picture. Foundry and others have, at times, mined transactions paying less than one sat per virtual byte, which shows the practical fee floor can collapse during quiet mempool periods.

Cheap confirmations improve user experience in calm windows, although the security budget that miners collect then leans even more on the fixed subsidy.

A simple way to frame the next quarter is to treat fees in three regimes and map them to miner revenue, hashprice, and the attack-cost bar.

Using 144 blocks per day, a 3.125 BTC subsidy, network hashrate near 1.13×10⁹ TH/s, and spot price around $113,000, fees per block of 0.02 BTC, 0.50 BTC, and 5.00 BTC correspond to fee shares of about 0.6 percent, 13.8 percent, and 61.5 percent of miner revenue.

The daily security budget, defined as the subsidy plus fees across 144 blocks, ranges from roughly 453 BTC in the quiet case to 522 BTC on a moderate day and to 1,170 BTC during peak activity.

The incremental effect on hashprice is mechanical.

Extra fees per block add ΔF × 144 BTC to daily revenue, which, spread across network hashrate and converted at spot, lifts miner earnings by about $0.29, $7.2, and $72 per petahash per day across those scenarios.

Forwards near $43 per petahash per day mean that a moderate fee day adds a mid-teens percentage uplift to revenue, while a peak day resets unit economics.

Regime	Fees per block (BTC)	Fee share of revenue	Security budget (BTC/day)	Security budget (USD/day @ $113k)	Hashprice uplift ($/PH/day)
Quiet	0.02	~0.6%	~452.9	~$51.2M	~$0.29
Moderate	0.50	~13.8%	~522.0	~$59.0M	~$7.2
Peak	5.00	~61.5%	~1,170.0	~$132.2M	~$72

Energy costs put these increments in context. A current-gen fleet anchored by Bitmain’s Antminer S21, with about 17.5 joules per terahash, and MicroBT’s M66S family near 18 to 18.5 joules per terahash, faces an electricity expense of roughly $21 to $30 per petahash per day at 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to vendor specifications and common U.S. power pricing.

With forwards around $ 43 per petahash per day, the gross power margin can be thin before considering operating and capital costs. A moderate fee day improves survival for marginal fleets, and repeated peaks can compensate for low-fee stretches by boosting cash generation.

Security framing benefits from two bounds that translate miner revenue into the difficulty of an attack.

A lower-bound, operating-expense view for a 51 percent attack assumes an attacker can source and operate hardware at S21-class efficiency.

Controlling 51 percent of 1.13 ZH/s at 17.5 J/TH implies a power draw of nearly 10.1 gigawatts. That is roughly 10,085 megawatt-hours per hour, which costs about $0.50 to $0.71 million per hour at 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.

This is a floor with unrealistic sourcing assumptions, and rental markets cannot currently supply the required capacity at that scale. It remains a useful order-of-magnitude marker, as per River’s explainer on 51 percent attacks.

An upper-bound, capital-anchored talking point scales from hardware counts. Owning 51 percent of today’s hashrate with 200 TH/s machines would require about 2.88 million Antminer S21s.

At $2,460 per unit, that is roughly $ 7.1 billion in hardware costs before sites, power contracts, and staff, consistent with recent media reports of several to tens of billions for multi-day control, based on retail-style pricing on industry trackers.

These bounds connect directly to fees.

Sustained higher fees raise miner revenue, difficulty, and equilibrium hashrate after adjustments, which in turn raises both the opex floor and the practical capital bar for an attacker.

Spikes from inscriptions or volatility can fund a large jump in the daily security budget, as halving day demonstrated, although they do not create a baseline.

The open question for the next quarter is whether protocol policy and wallet behavior can lift the fee floor without relying on cyclical mania.

There is tangible progress on that front.

Bitcoin Core v28 introduced one-parent-one-child package relay, enabling nodes to relay low-fee parent transactions when paired with a paying child through the child-pays-for-parent mechanism, even if the parent falls below the minimum relay fee threshold.

That reduces the risk of stuck transactions and allows miners to monetize block space that would otherwise be idle. The v3 and TRUC policy set adds a robust replace-by-fee feature for limited transaction topologies, which mitigates pinning and enables predictable fee bumping, crucial for Lightning channel operations and exchange batching.

The ephemeral anchors proposal introduces a standard anchor output that permits post-facto fee addition via CPFP without expanding the UTXO set. Together with Package RBF in simple 1P1C topologies and cluster-aware mempool work, these tools help miners discover profitable transaction clusters and enable wallets to pay for confirmation when necessary.

None of these changes print demand; however, they make fee bumping reliable, which tends to put a floor under fees as L2s and exchanges standardize flows.

Miner hedging adds another forward data point.

Luxor’s hashprice futures on Bitnomial, and the Hashrate Index network data behind them, provide a market view of expected miner revenue. If the forward curve softens while winter power prices tighten, network hashrate can plateau unless on-chain fees increase, a dynamic that will be visible in spot hashprice and difficulty over the coming weeks.

The pool template policy is also worth watching. If more pools habitually include sub-1 sat/vB transactions in quiet periods, baseline fee floors can drift down, even as improved relay and RBF support compress confirmation times during busy windows by propagating fee-bumped clusters more effectively.

The near-term read, with hashrate near 1.13 ZH/s and forward around $43 per petahash per day, is that moderate fees move the economics enough to keep marginal fleets online while policy improvements work through wallets and pools.

At today’s parameters, increasing the average fees to 0.5 BTC per block would push the daily security budget to approximately 522 BTC, or roughly $52 million, at $101,000.

Marathon’s third-quarter filing carried a quiet but definitive policy change, in which the company stated that it will now sell a portion of newly mined Bitcoin (BTC) to fund its operations.

The shift occurred as MARA held approximately 52,850 BTC on Sept. 30, paid around $0.04 per kilowatt-hour at its owned sites, and recorded a purchased-energy cost per Bitcoin of around $39,235 in the third quarter as network difficulty increased.

Transaction fees contributed just 0.9% of mining revenue in the quarter, underlining weak fee tailwinds. Cash usage was heavy year-to-date, with approximately $243 million allocated to property and equipment, $216 million in advances to vendors, and a $36 million wind asset purchase, all of which were funded alongside $1.6 billion in financing.

Real capital expenditure and liquidity needs now coexist with lower hash economics.

The timing matters because pressures are building across the mining cohort, and the ingredients are in place for miners to add to the same sell-side impulse visible in ETF redemptions.

The effect is uneven across operators, but Marathon’s explicit pivot from pure accumulation to tactical monetization offers a template for what happens when margin squeeze meets elevated capital commitments.

Margin compression turns miners into active sellers

Industry profitability tightened in November. Hashprice fell to a multi-month low this week, at around $43.1 per petahash per second, as the Bitcoin price slid, fees remained subdued, and hashrate continued to climb.

That’s a classic margin squeeze pattern. Revenue per unit of hash falls while the denominator of competition rises, and fixed costs, such as power and debt service, remain constant.

For miners without access to cheap power or external financing, the path of least resistance is to sell a greater share of their production rather than holding and hoping for a price recovery.

The trade-off is treasury versus operations. Holding Bitcoin works when its appreciation outpaces the opportunity cost of selling to fund capital expenditures or service debt.

When the hash price falls below the cash cost plus capital needs, holding becomes a bet that the price recovers before liquidity runs out. Marathon’s policy shift signals that bets no longer pencil at current margins.

The vulnerability lies in the fact that if more miners follow the same logic, monetizing production to stay current on commitments, the aggregate flow to exchanges adds supply at exactly the moment ETF redemptions are already pulling demand.

How the operator landscape splits

Riot Platforms posted record revenue of $180.2 million for the third quarter, along with strong profitability, and it is initiating 112 megawatts of new data-center shell. It is a capital-intensive effort, but with balance-sheet options that can temper forced Bitcoin sales.

CleanSpark benchmarked marginal cost near the mid-$30,000s per Bitcoin from its fiscal first quarter disclosure and sold roughly 590 BTC in October for about $64.9 million in proceeds, while boosting treasury to around 13,033 BTC. That’s active treasury management without wholesale dumping.

Hut 8 reported revenue of roughly $83.5 million for the third quarter, along with positive net income, noting the mixed pressures across the cohort.

The divergence reflects power costs, financing access, and capital-allocation philosophy. Operators with power costs of less than $0.04 per kilowatt-hour and sufficient equity or debt capacity can weather margin compression without resorting to sales.

Those paying market rates for energy or carrying heavy near-term CapEx face a different calculus. The AI pivot cuts both ways for future sell pressure. New, long-dated compute contracts, such as IREN’s $9.7 billion deal with Microsoft over five years with a 20% prepay, paired with a $5.8 billion Dell equipment deal.

These contracts create non-Bitcoin revenue streams that can reduce reliance on coin sales. However, they also require significant near-term capital expenditures and working capital, and in the interim, treasury monetization remains a flexible lever.

Flow data corroborates the risk

CryptoQuant dashboards indicate that miner-to-exchange activity increased in mid-October and early November.

One widely cited data point indicates that roughly 51,000 BTC have been sent from miner wallets to Binance since Oct. 9. This doesn’t prove immediate selling, but it raises near-term supply overhang, and ETF context matters for scale.

CoinShares’ latest weekly report flagged approximately $360 million in net outflows from crypto ETPs, with Bitcoin products accounting for roughly $946 million in negative net inflows, while Solana saw strong inflows.

That Bitcoin figure equates to over 9,000 BTC at $104,000, equivalent to about three days of post-halving miner issuance. A week where public miners lean harder on sales can meaningfully add to the same tape.

The mechanical effect is that miners are selling compounds, and ETF redemption pressure during the same window. ETF outflows remove primary market demand, and miner exchange deposits add secondary market supply.

When both move in the same direction, the net effect is to tighten liquidity, which can accelerate price declines. These declines then loop back to compress miner margins further, triggering additional sales.

Breaking the feedback loop

The structural constraint is that miners can’t sell what they don’t mine, and daily issuance post-halving is capped.

At the current network hashrate, the total miner supply is roughly 450 BTC per day. Even if the entire cohort monetized 100% of production, which they won’t, the absolute flow is bounded.

The risk is concentration. If the largest holders decide to draw down the treasury rather than sell fresh production, the overhang grows.

Marathon’s 52,850 BTC, CleanSpark’s 13,033 BTC, and similar positions across Riot and Hut 8 represent months of accumulated issuance that could theoretically be released to exchanges if liquidity needs or strategic pivots dictate.

The second constraint is recovery speed. If the hash price and fee share rebound, either due to Bitcoin price appreciation or a mempool surge that increases transaction fees, miner economics can shift quickly.

Operators that held through the squeeze gain, and those that sold production at trough margins lock in losses. That asymmetry creates an incentive to avoid forced selling, but only if balance sheets can absorb the interim burn.

The stakes are whether margin compression and elevated capital commitments push enough miners into active selling to add to ETF redemption drag materially, or whether better-capitalized operators can finance through the squeeze without monetizing treasury.

Marathon’s explicit policy shift is the clearest signal yet that even large, well-funded miners are willing to sell production tactically when economics tighten.

If hash price and fee share remain depressed while power costs and CapEx outlays remain elevated, more miners will follow, especially those without access to cheap power or external financing.

Sustained miner exchange flows and any acceleration in treasury drawdowns should be treated as additive to outflow-driven weeks from ETFs.

If flows reverse and fees recover, the pressure eases quickly.

• JPMorgan says Bitcoin is undervalued by $68K and now more attractive than gold.
• BTC slips below $101K as job cuts, weak stocks, and ETF outflows weigh on sentiment.
• Fed rate cut odds rise to 69%, but uncertainty keeps Bitcoin near key $100K level.

Bitcoin wavered below $101,000 on Thursday, slipping 2.4% as risk assets broadly declined.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency mirrored weakness in US equities, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 moving lower amid renewed concerns over the economy and labor market.

Fresh data from employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, revealed more than 153,000 job cuts in October, which is the highest for that month since 2003.

“October’s pace of job cutting was much higher than average for the month,” said Andy Challenger, the firm’s chief revenue officer.

The latest figures added to investor unease, particularly as the ongoing US government shutdown has delayed official employment reports. Analysts suggested the grim data could pressure the Federal Reserve to deliver more rate cuts to support the economy.

“The economy may need more interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve,” trading analysis firm The Kobeissi Letter wrote on X, calling the current environment “a new era of monetary policy.”

However, not all market observers are convinced the Fed will move again in December.

Singapore-based trading firm QCP Capital cautioned that a rate cut at the upcoming meeting is “not guaranteed,” noting that markets are pricing only 60–65% odds of a follow-up move.

According to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, investors currently assign a 69% probability to a 0.25% reduction in December.

A prolonged policy pause, QCP added, could keep the US dollar firm and credit conditions tight — factors that typically weigh on Bitcoin and other risk-sensitive assets.

Institutional outflows pressure Bitcoin sentiment

Beyond macroeconomic concerns, Bitcoin also faces headwinds from waning institutional demand.

QCP Capital pointed to continued outflows from US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which have totaled nearly $900 million over the first three days of the week.

The firm described the $100,000 price level as a key “psychological threshold,” suggesting that any stabilization in ETF flows could quickly shift sentiment — provided no new macro shocks emerge.

Market participants have maintained a cautious tone, with many traders eyeing a potential retracement toward the open “gap” in CME Group’s Bitcoin futures near $92,000 as a possible support level.

Despite the short-term weakness, analysts at JPMorgan see a longer-term opportunity in the recent decline.

JPMorgan says Bitcoin now undervalued relative to gold

In a note quoted by MarketWatch, JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and his team argued that Bitcoin is now more attractive than gold following its latest pullback.

The bank’s research suggested that the cryptocurrency had previously been “$36,000 too high compared with gold” at the end of last year but is now “around $68,000 too low.”

The shift marks a notable change in tone from the investment bank, which has historically viewed Bitcoin as a speculative asset.

The analysts indicated that Bitcoin’s relative undervaluation could make it appealing to investors seeking alternatives to traditional safe-haven assets.

While institutional outflows have dampened momentum in recent weeks, JPMorgan’s assessment provides a bullish counterpoint, highlighting that the cryptocurrency may have entered oversold territory compared with its long-term benchmarks.

As Bitcoin continues to trade around the $100,000 mark, market participants will be watching whether renewed institutional interest or dovish shifts in monetary policy can reignite the cryptocurrency’s rally in the weeks ahead.