Bitcoin miners’ income stabilizes post-halving: Coin Metrics

Bitcoin (BTC) mining revenues hit $3.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, a 42% increase from the prior quarter, and are approaching similar levels of around $3.6 billion in Q1 2025, according to data from Coin Metrics. 

The revenue uptick suggests miners’ incomes are stabilizing after the Bitcoin network’s “halving” in April 2024 reduced mining rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block. Halvings occur every four years and cut the number of BTC mined per block in half.

“With almost one year elapsed since Bitcoin’s 4th halving, miners have endured a period of stabilization, adapting to reduced block rewards, tighter margins, and shifting operational dynamics,” Coin Metrics said in its Q1 2025 Data Special report.

This recovery could be cut short if ongoing trade wars disrupt miners’ business models, Ben Yorke, vice president of Ecosystem at WOO X, a Web3 startup, told Cointelegraph.

“Should semiconductor tariffs return, Bitcoin mining could face higher costs, consolidating power among major players and forcing smaller operations to power down,” Yorke said.

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Adapting after the halving

Bitcoin miners have struggled in 2025 as declining cryptocurrency prices added further pressure to business models strained by the network’s April halving, according to a March 3 JPMorgan research note shared with Cointelegraph.

However, well-capitalized miners have managed to adapt, according to Coin Metrics. In fact, Bitcoin’s hashrate — the total computing power securing the network — broke all-time highs in January, CoinWarz data showed. 

Common adjustments have included “upgrading to more energy efficient ASICs, [and] relocating to regions with cheaper and abundant renewable energy resources,” such as Africa and Latin America, Coin Metrics said. ASICs are specialized computer hardware used in Bitcoin mining. 

Additionally, “miners are also diversifying into AI data-center hosting as a way to expand revenue and repurpose existing infrastructure for high-performance computing,” per the report. For instance, Bitcoin miner Core Scientific pledged 200 megaWatts of hardware capacity to support CoreWeave’s artificial intelligence workloads.

Sustaining mining incentives

According to Coin Metrics, more transaction activity on the Bitcoin network would help sustain economic incentives for miners post-halving. “Over time, increased participation from higher-value or more time-sensitive activity could help drive stronger fee revenue, supporting miner incentives as block rewards decline,” it said. 

However, for now, “[t]ransactions below $100 currently represent ~60% of Bitcoin’s total transaction count,” according to Coin Metrics. This is partially because holders are increasingly treating Bitcoin as a buy-and-hold asset rather than a medium of exchange. 

“Bitcoin’s supply velocity, measuring the ratio of adjusted transfer volume to its current supply (rate of turnover), has declined over time, reinforcing the idea that BTC is increasingly held rather than transacted,” the report noted.

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