Bitcoin miners' reserves have decreased by 8,400 coins since the beginning of the year, dropping to 1.8 million coins

According to Bloomberg, data compiled by CryptoQuant shows that since early 2024, Bitcoin miner reserves (unspent bitcoins held in company-related digital wallets) have decreased by 8,400 tokens to 1.8 million tokens. The last time this level was seen was in June 2021. Analysts suggest that this decline indicates miners are selling Bitcoin.

Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, stated: "Miners have started selling more tokens to improve their balance sheets and provide funds for increased capital expenditures as they prepare for the challenging period when block rewards will halve in April. Scale will become even more important after the halving."

The selling pressure from miners seems to be impacting the price of Bitcoin as it has been struggling since the first U.S. Bitcoin ETF approval on January 10th. During this period, the token dropped by about 6% to $43,000. According to CryptoQuant's data, since the ETF approval, a total of 3,617 bitcoins have moved from miner wallets to exchanges. On February 1st alone, there was a net outflow of 13,542 bitcoins - the largest single-day outflow since December 2020.

In a recent report from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex: "Miners appear to be selling their held Bitcoins to fund purchases of more efficient mining equipment. Decreased revenue could particularly impact smaller mining operations and potentially lead them towards bankruptcy."