F2Pool says only a few bitcoin ASICs remain profitable as price drops

Just five bitcoin mining machines or ASICs remain profitable at current prices as the cryptocurrency plunged below $55,000 on Friday morning, according to bitcoin mining pool operator F2Pool.

Antminer S21 Hydro, Antminer S21, Avalon A1466I, Antminer S19 XP Hydro and Antminer S19 XP currently remain profitable at a break-even bitcoin price of $39,581, $43,292, $48,240, $51,456 and $53,187, respectively, per F2Pool. 

The Whatsminer M56S++ is teetering on the brink of profitability with a break-even price of $54,424 and bitcoin trading for $54,407 at the time of writing, according to The Block’s bitcoin price page . 

Meanwhile, Bitmain’s Antminer S19k Pro, one of the most dominant ASIC miners on the market since the 2020 Bitcoin BTC -3.95% halving, has dropped off the list of profitable machines, with a reported break-even price of $56,898.

"With Bitcoin trading below $58k, what is the current profitability for mining? At a rate of $0.08/kWh, ASICs less efficient than 23 W/T operate at a loss," F2Pool explained.

Bitcoin ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) are specialized hardware designed specifically for mining Bitcoin. Unlike general-purpose computing hardware like CPUs or GPUs, ASICs are tailored to perform a specific task—in this case, the complex calculations required for Bitcoin mining.

Hashprice hits all-time low despite negative difficulty adjustment as hashrate continues to fall

Bitcoin has dropped more than 5% over the past 24 hours and 11% during the past week, seeing hashprice, a measure of bitcoin miners’ revenue per unit of hashing power, fall to an all-time low of $44.50 PH/s per day on Friday, according to Hashrate Index. That's despite a 5% negative difficulty adjustment earlier today, per Bitbo data .

Meanwhile, the Bitcoin network’s total hashrate continues to fall following Bitcoin’s fourth halving event in April as less efficient miners feel the profit squeeze of block subsidy rewards dropping from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

According to The Block’s data dashboard , the seven-day moving average network hashrate fell more than 12% from 629.44 EH/s on April 20 to a low of 550.25 EH/s by the end of June. The average network hashrate stands at 586.49 EH/s as of Thursday.

However, Friday’s negative difficulty adjustment could help some miners’ current struggles, making it slightly easier to mine blocks than it has been for the past two weeks.

When there’s an increase in the number of miners, the difficulty of mining bitcoin rises. Conversely, if there is a decrease in the number of miners competing to find new blocks, the protocol lowers the mining difficulty, making it easier for the remaining miners to discover blocks.

Is bitcoin miner capitulation a bottom signal?

Bitcoin’s 27% fall from an all-time high of $73,836 on March 14 ends a record 427-day streak without a 25% drawdown, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards noted on Friday, with miners’ offloading both new bitcoin mined and bitcoin reserves a significant proportion of the sell pressure. “Beat the 2012 record by 63 days. Pretty incredible run we've had and well overdue for a correction,” he said.

Days since bitcoin drawdown of more than 25%. Image: Capriole Investments .

Daily miner outflows have spiked considerably in recent weeks, according to a report from analysts at CryptoQuant on Wednesday, with bitcoin miners likely turning off underperforming hardware and selling coins following the halving, they said.

There are various signs of miner capitulation, which historically has indicated a bottom in prices, according to the CryptoQuant analysts, noting that for most of the period since April, miners have been "extremely underpaid" according to the data provider's metrics.

Daily miner revenues have dropped from $72 million on April 20 to $28 million as of Thursday, according to The Block’s data dashboard .

The last comparable hashrate drawdown occurred following the collapse of FTX in November 2022, when bitcoin's price fell below $17,000 but began its ascent in price soon after, the CryptoQuant analysts added.

The capitulation may not be over yet, however, with Capriole’s hash ribbon indicator, designed to identify hashrate and price recovery coming out of post-halving miner capitulation events, suggesting the current correction could last up to September.