Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) miners earned more than $15 billion and $16.5 billion respectively in 2021. A record year in terms of revenue.
Jackpot for Bitcoin miners
Bitcoin (BTC) miners shared more than $15 billion in revenue during 2021, according to the latest report from The Block. This estimate represents a 206% increase from the year 2020.
Miners’ revenues are estimated based on the assumption that miners sell their BTC immediately, which is not entirely accurate since some miners hold onto their crypto-currencies over several weeks and months.
Bitcoin’s hash rate, a measure of miner performance, had reached a new all-time high of 166 million TH/s in April. The total computing power of the network had fallen sharply by 50% between May and June before recovering to record levels by the end of the year.
Ether miners not left behind
Ether miners, meanwhile, generated a total of $16.5 billion in revenue, which represents an increase of 678% compared to 2020.
This record can be attributed to a significant increase in activity on the network due to the development of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the explosion of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
This record was also achieved despite the implementation of EIP-1559 in July 2021. This “burn” mechanism destroyed part of the transaction fees. That’s still 1.25 million ETH that were burned and did not go into the miners’ pockets.
Like Bitcoin, Ethereum’s hash rate took a hit in May and June, but quickly recovered. The network’s computing power surpassed its all-time high in August 2018 by reaching a record high rate of 819 TH/s at the end of November. Year-to-date, Ethereum’s hash rate has increased by 187%.
