CoinMetrics analyst Kyle Waters tweeted that miners transferred 88,000 Bitcoins (BTC) to exchanges, reaching a record high.
Bitcoin miners do not want to take risks
The amount of Bitcoin sent to exchanges by miners has lost a new peak. This is the largest amount ever seen. The total monetary value of Bitcoins also surpassed the previous record. Almost $2 billion worth of Bitcoin was transferred to exchanges by miners. Miners are selling BTC to cover expenses due to the global economic crisis. Recently, numerous Bitcoin mining businesses reported that they will sell Bitcoin to raise cash and make new investments. Core Scientific, one of the largest mining enterprises, sold 2700 BTC in March, when the cryptocurrency market was on the decline. Bitcoin has lost more than 50% in those days so far. In March and April, they reported selling loads of Bitcoin at businesses like Riot Blockchain and Argo Blockchain.
Yesterday was also an all-time high in USD terms – miners sent a net $1.94B worth of BTC to exchanges: pic.twitter.com/O9sgwwgeMH
— Kyle Waters (@kylewaters_) June 15, 2022
Miners 88k
In the tweet above, Kyle Waters says that miners transferred 88,000 BTC net to exchanges yesterday, reaching a record high. On June 15, miners recorded the largest Bitcoin transfer ever in dollar terms. As can be seen from the chart below, such an event last occurred in 2016.
Why do miners sell BTC?
Earlier this month, Compass Mining’s director, Will Foxley, said that the move was merely a cautionary response to the macro environment, rather than a definitive confirmation of miners’ pessimism. He added that selling BTC is a prudent move to keep mining operations going during uncertainty:
I think miners are just talking about the macro environment and it is probably prudent to sell Bitcoin at these levels to keep operations safe. I’m thinking.
The table above summarizes the mining activities in May. Looking at the data above, Kyle Waters points out that he is selling at his individual miners:
Many publicly traded miners, such as Core Scientific, which sold 2.7 thousand BTC in May, announced their sales after accumulating BTC for months.
The table below highlights the year-to-date production of each of the above miners compared to Iris Energy (IREN), which claims to be the top BTC producer year-to-date.
