October has been a historic month for Bitcoin production by Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Platforms, which reached record figures for the year despite the increase in the cryptocurrency's mining difficulty.
Last month has cemented itself as the best month for Bitcoin production for miners since the April halving. Despite challenges facing the industry, such as rising mining difficulty and increasing competition, companies like Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms have achieved remarkable results in their BTC production.
Marathon and Riot lead post-halving Bitcoin production
Marathon Digital, one of the most prominent players in the Bitcoin mining sector, reported a production of 717 BTC in October, which represents a 2% increase compared to its cryptocurrency production in the month of September.
Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon, he highlighted that this increase occurred despite a slight decrease in the number of blocks won, attributed to the increasing network difficulty and the increase in the global hash rate. Still, Marathon managed to maintain a strong uptime and increase its Powered hash rate at 40,2 EH/s, representing a growth of 14% compared to the previous month.
In its October Bitcoin mining production and operation update, Marathon highlighted that its mining revenue was boosted by on-network transaction fees, which accounted for roughly 5% of the total BTC produced last month.
Source: MARA
The crypto mining company emphasized that two significant Bitcoin transactions generated fees of 3,217 BTC and 2,665 BTC, respectively, highlighting its ability to maximize revenue through its proprietary technology, such as Slipstream and MARAPool.
At the end of October, Marathon held a total of 27.562 BTC, of which 4.499 were restricted. The company remains on track to meet its target of 50 EH/s by the end of 2024, thanks to the installation of new miners and infrastructure improvements.
For its part, Riot Platforms, another major Bitcoin miner, also reported a successful month of October, with a Total production of 505 BTCThis amount of bitcoins mined from the network represents a 23% increase compared to September.
Source: Riot Platforms
Jason Les, CEO of Riot Platforms, attributed this growth to the expansion of its hash rate, which reached 29,4 EH/s, thanks to the implementation of new MicroBT miners at its Corsicana facility. This increase in operational efficiency has allowed the company to not only increase its production, but also to position itself favorably in an increasingly competitive environment.
Riot Platforms’ ability to adapt and improve its efficiency is also reflected in its average daily BTC production, which rose from 13,7 BTC in September to 16,8 BTC in October.
At the end of the month, Riot had 10.928 BTC in its reserves, a notable increase from 10.427 BTC the previous month.
The increase in Bitcoin's hash rate and mining difficulty
The growth in Bitcoin production by Marathon and Riot has been accompanied by a significant increase in the Bitcoin network hash rate, which has reached a seven-day moving average of 755,5 EH/s. This is a new all-time high for the most robust blockchain on the market, and marks an important milestone in the network’s processing power.
However, this increase in hash rate has also led to a significant increase in the mining difficulty, which exceeded 100 trillion for the first time, reaching a new high of 101,7 trillion, according to mempool data.
Source: Mempool
The Bitcoin network's mining difficulty is automatically adjusted every 2016 blocks. This is to ensure that a new block is generated on the network every 10 minutes as set by the Bitcoin protocol, regardless of how many miners are active on the network. Therefore, mining difficulty is a crucial indicator, as it determines how much computational power and energy is required to mine new blocks on the chain.
As more miners join the network, difficulty tends to increase, which can impact the profitability of less efficient miners. However, larger miners with better infrastructure, such as Marathon and Riot, are well positioned to take advantage of this growth.
Overall, the growth in Bitcoin production seen in October from these BTC miners reflects the increase in their hash capacity, as well as a recovery in the profitability of this activity since the arrival of the fourth halving in April, which reduced block rewards to 3,125 BTC.
In order to maintain their position in the market, both Marathon and Riot are committed to further expanding their capacity and optimizing their operations. This will not only benefit crypto mining companies, but will also contribute to the stability and security of the Bitcoin network as a whole.
