Bitcoin Mining Revenue Hits $184 Million in Q2 Amid Ordinals Fervor, and more

1. Bitcoin Mining Revenue Hits $184 Million in Q2 Amid Ordinals Fervor

Bitcoin miners are awash with funds from transaction fees, a multimillion-dollar windfall generated this past quarter due to the popularity of BRC-20 tokens and Ordinals, according to Coin Metrics.

The crypto analytics firm said that a formerly “tepid fee market” for Bitcoin miners has been suddenly upended, with its latest “State of the Network” report finding miners earning $184 million from transaction fees from April through June.

Compared to $2.4 billion in Bitcoin mining revenue overall, that figure may sound small, but the latest transaction fee total represents more than the five preceding quarters combined, Coin Metrics said. It described the shift as “an exceptional change” influenced by BRC-20 tokens.

Launched earlier this year, Ordinals is a protocol that enables people to create NFT-like assets on Bitcoin by inscribing data to an individual satoshi—the smallest unit of currency that a Bitcoin can be divided into, equal to 1/100,000,000 of a whole Bitcoin.

Even though Ordinals’ arrival has been met with some pushback from within the Bitcoin community, its potential has been highlighted by figures like MicroStrategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, a prominent Bitcoin supporter who noted the protocol’s new ability to help miners stay profitable over time.

BRC-20 tokens were introduced in March, and the experimental class of coins takes inspiration from Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard. BRC-20 tokens have ballooned to over $240 million in market capitalization since being introduced, according to CoinGecko.

In order for people to mint BRC-20 tokens—and essentially claim them from a BRC-20 project that’s launched—users have to submit a transaction along with a fee to have their move to mint tokens processed on Bitcoin’s network and included in the next block of transactions.

As a sense of “mania” surrounding BRC-20 tokens took hold in May, people became more willing to pay a greater premium on transactions in exchange for speed, Nick Hansen, CEO and co-founder of Luxor Technologies, told Decrypt.

“BRC-20s introduced this urgency because what you needed to do was get your transactions confirmed faster than other peoples’ transactions,” he said. “Then you would basically win the coins from the mint.”

Transaction fees on Bitcoin were so high in May that some people claimed Bitcoin was under attack. And the amount of Bitcoin miners earned from transaction fees outpaced Bitcoin’s block subsidy for the first time since 2017.

Coin Metrics’ report notes that payout amounts related to transaction fees have waned as the fervor surrounding BRC-20s ebbs. Still, the amount of funds that miners are receiving from transaction fees remains robust, Hansen said—especially compared to years past.

“We have calmed down, but we’re still seeing persistent demand for Bitcoin block space,” Hansen said. “Miners are still making 10 to 15 times more from their transaction fee volume than they would have last year.”

2. Early Bitcoin Miner Who Struck Gold Now Discovers Wealth in FinTech

Bitcoin’s (BTC) Bullish Momentum Intensifies Amidst Global Economic Uncertainty

Industry experts have hinted at Bitcoin’s (BTC) notable price growth in the coming month, with altcoins also potentially riding the upward wave.

The driving force behind Bitcoin’s (BTC) predicted surge is the persistent accumulation of Bitcoin (BTC) by the whales, who have a strong appetite for acquiring more of the flagship cryptocurrency.

As a result, investors have kept track of Bitcoin’s (BTC) interesting price dynamics. In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) jumped by 0.29%, reaching $30,499.24. However, Bitcoin (BTC) faced a rollercoaster ride in the past week, surging past $31,000 before dropping slightly to $29,500. Yet, its volatility remained relatively subdued.

After reaching a debt ceiling agreement, the US Treasury Department quickly boosted its cash balance to $500 billion in just one month. Notably, this replenishment of the General Account of the Treasury (TGA) has been executed without any significant influence on risky assets, such as Bitcoin (BTC), or the net liquidity of the US dollar.

Furthermore, the recent Bitcoin ETF applications filed with the SEC triggered an exaggerated market response. Industry experts say Bitcoin (BTC) can skyrocket to $31,564 in the coming weeks.

VC Spectra’s Remarkable Profitability Sets the Standard in the Venture Capital Industry

Renowned industry analysts have unanimously projected VC Spectra (SPCT) to reach unprecedented heights within the crypto industry. If the remarkable results achieved during the first presale stage are anything to go by, then it’s no surprise that early Bitcoin (BTC) miners are flocking to VC Spectra (SPCT).

VC Spectra’s unmatched practicality and outstanding potential pave the way for its imminent transformation into a prevailing entity within the cryptocurrency market. As a decentralized hedge fund, it offers investors access to diversified portfolios and promising blockchain ventures.

With its user-centric approach, VC Spectra rewards investors with quarterly dividends and buybacks directly linked to investment profits. It also provides users with voting rights and exclusive opportunities to participate in pre-ICOs and early-stage blockchain ventures. Moreover, VC Spectra (SPCT) optimizes returns through its advanced AI trading strategies while minimizing risks.

Central to VC Spectra’s ecosystem is the native token, SPCT, which operates on the Bitcoin blockchain and conforms to the BRC-20 standard. SPCT employs a deflationary framework featuring a burn mechanism that steadily reduces the token circulation over time.

VC Spectra (SPCT) enticing proposition has attracted considerable attention from crypto investors, resulting in a remarkable 62.05% purchase of the available SPCT supply. The platform is in its first phase of public presale, with its trading price set at $0.008. However, VC Spectra (SPCT) is expected to surge by 37.5% to $0.011 in its second presale stage and potentially experience a massive 900% increase, reaching its target price of $0.08 upon launch.

With VC Spectra (SPCT) on the brink of an extraordinary rise, investing now guarantees you access to a world of potential benefits that await!

3. Heating a home with a Bitcoin miner: Staying warm with sats

Some miners use that heat to warm swimming pools, dehydrate meat to make beef jerky or even dry out timber at a Swedish hydropower Bitcoin farm. In Ireland, the “Bitcoin Farmer” joked that he hangs out laundry to dry in front of his Bitcoin miner.

Miner heat is not new to the Bitcoin industry. In the early days of Bitcoin, enthusiasts would mine the cryptocurrency with their everyday computers, leading to overheating and stories of uncomfortably warm environments.

Bitcoin mining has changed since the early days. With the markedly increased difficulty of solving hash computations on the Bitcoin blockchain, miners have ditched ubiquitous graphics processing units for more powerful application specific integrated circuits, or ASICS. However, heating and cooling still remain an issue.

In a nod to the future of capturing waste heat, Satoshi Nakamoto shared a message showing precognition:

“The heat from your computer is not wasted if you need to heat your home.”

So why not take advantage of that heat and use it for productive resources? That’s exactly what I wanted to experiment with at my home near Lisbon, Portugal, this winter.

Do-it-yourself solutions that utilize Bitcoin miner “waste” heat in the home are increasingly popular. However, it can be tricky. The #mine4heat hashtag on Twitter boasts Bitcoin hobbyists who can rewire and soundproof Bitcoin miners — without electrocuting themselves.

However, for the “average Joe,” like me, it seems daunting. I’m a technologically stunted Bitcoin enthusiast who took years to run a node. So while the idea is appealing, I feared I might burn the house down.

There are several heater-cum-Bitcoin mining companies, like Heatbit and BitHeater, which are aware of Bitcoin miners’ ability to make money while heating spaces, but also that there could be pent-up demand for a plug-and-play solution.

Heatbit founder Alex Busarov told Cointelegraph that while ease of use was appealing, the environmental use case for Bitcoin miner heat drove the mission: “We want to make mining truly green,” he said.

Busarov said, “The claims that ‘xx%’ of energy used for mining comes from renewable energy’ are misleading. While the number might sound impressive, it ignores the fact that this renewable energy would have been added to the grid if not used for industrial mining.”

“Bitcoin mining is only genuinely green when combined with heating; this way, no extra energy is consumed by mining.”

Busarov referred to the statistics and claims published by Bitcoin mining advocates, including that Bitcoin is the greenest industry and that Bitcoin mining incentivizes renewable energy buildout. Nonetheless, Bitcoin miners take a lot of heat even when using waste heat for productive purposes.

Personally, I was more focused on the power draw of the Heatbit Bitcoin miners. If it consumes less electricity than my standard electric heaters, it would be a no-brainer for use over the winter — so I got my hands on one and put it to the test.

The result: for four months, I heated my small flat in Portugal with a Heatbit.