Bitcoin drops under $70,000, pushing miners into losses

Bitcoin’s recent sell-off has pushed its price below $70k, putting intense pressure on miners. The crypto asset is trading at $69,280, while miners’ production costs are $87k. 

Bitcoin fell below $70k on Thursday, prompting miners to capitulate. The sharp decline has forced many miners into unprofitability. At $70k, Bitcoin is trading about 20% below its estimated production cost, putting intense pressure on mining operations. According to data from Checkonchain, the average cost to produce one bitcoin is around $87,000.

Bitcoin prices fall below production costs, signalling a bear market

Data from previous market cycles show that when Bitcoin prices fall below production costs, it typically signals an ongoing bear market. In 2019 and 2022, BTC fell below production costs but later recovered. Data from Hashrate Index shows that Bitcoin hashrate, which is a measure of the total computational power needed to secure the Bitcoin network, currently sits at 915.85 EH/s. 

The hashrate peaked in October at 1.1 ZH/s, but later dropped by double digits as miners shut down less efficient mining equipment. BTC hash price, the value of 1 TH/s of hashing power per day, has declined to $31.56 from a high of $42.11 recorded in mid-January.

The recent BTC price decline has pushed miners into uncharted territory, as they struggle to remain afloat amid unprofitability at current BTC prices. Most Antminer S21-series machines, which represent a large portion of modern global hashrate, have shut down, and the miners are now forced to sell their BTC holdings to meet their day-to-day expenses and cover energy costs while servicing existing debt.

BTC’s decline has also caused a ripple effect on the rest of the crypto market. Digital assets such as Ethereum have also sunk along with it, affecting crypto corporations and individual investors. Ethereum is trading at $2,052, down from $4,742 recorded in October. BitMine Immersion Technologies is currently sitting at nearly $7 billion in unrealized losses on its ETH holdings, accumulated since it turned away from Bitcoin mining in mid-2025.

Bitcoin’s price decline coincides with ETF outflows registered this week. As of February 4, spot U.S. BTC ETFs logged $544.94 million in outflows according to data from ETF tracking website SosoValue. BlackRock’s iBIT led the funds with negative flows worth $373.44 million, while Fidelity’s FBTC followed with outflows worth $86.44 million. The outflows on Wednesday continued from Tuesday’s $272.02 million outflows. On Monday, the funds recorded inflows of $561.89 million, ending a five-day streak of negative flows that began on January 27.

BTC capitulation is back, onchain data shows

A previous Cryptopolitan report noted that BTC capitulation is back. The report cited Glassnode data showing the Bitcoin capitulation metric spiked again, returning to levels not seen since the October 10 deleveraging. The report noted that the recent crypto market sell-off is the second-largest meltdown in the last two years. The report also revealed that Bitcoin has never returned to the previous levels of open interest, as concerns of liquidations among derivative traders rose. 

The publication noted that all wallet cohorts have sold BTC in the last month, with Shark wallets holding 100-1,000 BTC selling 83,771 BTC in January and 19,194 BTC in the past week alone. 30,000 retail wallets holding less than a full Bitcoin sold all their holdings in the past day, despite having bought the crypto asset in the last month. 

At the time of this publication, Bitcoin is trading at $69,280, the lowest price since November 3, 2024, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The digital asset is down 7.5% over the last 24 hours, bringing its 7-day loss to 20.94%. Bitcoin is down 44% from its all-time high of $126,198, recorded about 4 months ago on October 06, 2025.

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