Bitcoin miners now hold a record 1.856M BTC — new data

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin (BTC) miners now own more BTC than at any time in history as the impact of the past months' turbulence wears off.

According to data from on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, miners' BTC holdings increased dramatically in July.

In the latest sign of miners recovering from recent price weakness, the amount of BTC in their wallets has hit a fresh all-time high.

As noted by CryptoQuant contributor and analyst Jan Wuestenfeld, their combined balance totaled 1,865,272 BTC as of July 29. The start of August saw a slight decline, with the total as of Aug. 3 being 1,864,842 BTC.

Between July 6, when reserves hit a local low, and the July 29 record, miners' wallet balance increased by 0.37%, or 6,885 BTC.

"Bitcoin miner reserves have fully recovered the outflows/sell-off that happened after the capitulation event in June," Wuestenfeld commented in one of CryptoQuant's "Quicktake" updates on the day. 

Wuestenfeld was referring to miners' struggles as BTC/USD fell to its lowest since late 2020, subsequently recovering around 38% from a $17,600 floor.

Their problems were clearly visible in network fundamentals, with both hash rate and difficulty declining to reflect decreasing miner participation.

As Cointelegraph reported, difficulty will see its first increase in months this week, while Wuestenfeld notes that hash rate has yet to stage a noticeable comeback.

"Meanwhile, the hashrate is still in a downward trend, where unprofitable miners appear to be shutting down their equipment after bitcoin's price declined in mid-June," he added.

Other metrics are also pointing to light at the end of the tunnel for miners. Last week, numbers suggested that miners' "capitulation" phase could be over as soon as August should price action continue