Some public miners already fell during the 2021-2022 race. That includes, for example, a major one, Core Scientific, which is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. However, the rising mining difficulty and declining Bitcoin price didn't stand in crypto miners' way. Total computing capacity grew by 54% this year to 417 EH/s.

The yield from one terahash of capacity has reached a new all-time low, now sitting at 2.26 BTC or $60,000 per day.

We've already featured stories on forward-thinking companies that connect farms directly to power plants (by bypassing distribution networks) or rely on renewable energy sources. The industry's best energy prices are $0.02-0.03 per 1 kWh of electricity.

These low expenses lead to Bitcoin mining costing around $15,000, while the industry's average cost, according to Glassnode, is $24,000.

Miners are teetering on the edge and counting on the imminent rise of Bitcoin's price. Most forecasts from the public crypto miners cite prices from $35,000 to $75,000 for the next six months.

However, the reality may hurt way worse. The chairman of the US Federal Reserve has already stated that the regulator will keep high rates for a longer period, and JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, warned investors of a possible increase to 7%. In such a scenario, risky assets are weak against US Treasury bonds, whose yields are growing amid the Fed's monetary policy tightening.

At the same time, Bitcoin is expected to have a halving event, which would cut the income from mining blocks by two, in mid-April. The reward for block currently accounts for 96% of miners' income. Only 4% comes from commission received by network users. 

In other words, the cost of mining, even for top farms with the best electricity rates, will skyrocket to $30,000 a coin. If Bitcoin's price or network fees don't rise prior to the halving event, miners will face a critical drop in their financial performance.

StormGain Analytical Group 
(platform for trading, exchanging and storing cryptocurrency)