Bitcoin faces headwinds challenging miners in near term, says JPMorgan

Unprofitable bitcoin miners are starting to exit the network after the halving , as expected. That’s a relief to remaining miners because it makes producing a single bitcoin less expensive. But much of their performance relies on bitcoin’s price, which still faces several near-term headwinds, according to JPMorgan. “The current hashrate and power consumption put our central estimate of the bitcoin production cost to around $45,000, i.e. well below current prices,” JPMorgan’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said in a note Thursday. Bitcoin is currently trading at about $66,000, after a 7% rally earlier this week . However, “we do not see upside for bitcoin prices in the current juncture and if anything we see headwinds over the near term,” he added. Specifically, the global market strategist pointed out that: JPMorgan’s CME bitcoin futures position proxy still suggests it’s overbought. Bitcoin prices are still above JPMorgan’s volatility-adjusted comparison to gold of $45,000. Venture capital funding to crypto companies has been subdued this year despite the “crypto price resurgence.” There’s been limited inflow into bitcoin ETFs this month following a significant outflow in April. There’s “lackluster demand” following Hong Kong’s approval of spot bitcoin and ether ETFs. As a result of some miners exiting the Bitcoin network, there’s been a reduction in Bitcoin’s hash rate – or the combined computational power required by miners to mine bitcoin and process network transactions. That was expected to happen after the halving in April, which slashed a key revenue source for bitcoin miners. That drop was delayed, due to a short-lived surge in miners’ other revenue stream, transaction fees. As that revenue disappeared, however, unprofitable miners were pushed out. “This highlights the ongoing challenge faced by bitcoin miners to maintain a sustainable source of revenue, in particular in the post halving environment,” Panigirtzoglou said. That’s especially true with the price of bitcoin in the doldrums, having mostly traded between $60,000 and $70,000 since March. Miners have two incentives to mine: transaction fees that are paid voluntarily by senders for faster settlement and mining rewards, which were just slashed in the halving to 3.125 newly created bitcoins from 6.25. The incentive first began at 50 bitcoins. “There is a natural feedback loop with bitcoin prices,” Panigirtzoglou said. “The more bitcoin prices decline the higher the number of unprofitable miners that come under pressure to leave the bitcoin network and the larger the result[ing] decline in the hash rate and bitcoin production cost.”