Bitcoin slips under $77,000 as rally boosts mining economics
Investing.com -- Bitcoin traded at $76,536 on Sunday, down 0.8% over 24 hours, after giving up earlier gains that carried it as high as $77,468, as investors assessed improving miner profitability and Grayscale’s argument that the bear market may be maturing.
Bitcoin had reached $79,461 on Friday before retreating, extending the pullback that began after a sharp rally driven by lower U.S. Treasury yields, spot demand and forced liquidation of bearish positions. Bitcoin was trading down 0.60% at $76,586.2 as of 05:57 ET (09:57 GMT).
The price recovery has provided relief to miners. Bitcoin’s hashprice, a measure of expected revenue from a unit of computing power, climbed 20.4% over four days to $38.29 per petahash per second on Saturday from $31.80 on August 18, Bitcoin.com reported.
Network computing power stood near 922 exahashes per second, approaching the one-zettahash threshold. Foundry USA remained the largest mining pool, followed by Antpool and F2Pool.
Miners had earned $682.69 million from block subsidies and transaction fees in August through Saturday. Only $5.14 million came from fees, leaving operators heavily dependent on block rewards and Bitcoin’s price.
Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl said three factors may support long-term buyers: continued adoption, the maturity of the current bear market and a broadly supportive macroeconomic outlook.
The bear market was about 10 months old, approaching the 11-to-12-month average and median duration of Bitcoin’s four previous cyclical downturns.
Grayscale linked longer-term adoption to rising government debt, greater blockchain use in financial services and generational changes in portfolio construction. U.S. public debt stood near $40.03 trillion on August 20.
Interest rates remain the main risk. The Federal Reserve held its policy rate at 3.5% to 3.75% in July, though three officials preferred an increase. A future rate hike could pressure non-yielding assets such as Bitcoin.
Separately, a study found a statistical link between higher European carbon prices and increased Russian power-sector emissions associated with Bitcoin mining. Researchers said this may reflect operators switching machines between jurisdictions rather than physically relocating equipment.
Regional Russian mining bans introduced since 2025 could limit that strategy.
Crypto prices today: altcoins mostly muted on Sunday
Broader crypto prices were mostly muted on Sunday, with small gains and losses.
World no.2 crypto Ether fell 0.09% to trade at $2,411.01.
World no. 3 crypto XRP was down 0.36% and was trading at $1.4793.
Solana was up 0.57%, while BNB had declined 0.21% and was trading at $689.48.
Conversely, Cardano had dropped 0.99% and was trading at $0.2206.
Among meme tokens, Dogecoin was up 1.73%, while TRUMP had surged 88.12%.
