Bitcoin miners rn

The amount of computing power dedicated to bitcoin mining rose 14% over the two-week period ending Monday, reaching its highest level on record. Part of the reason? Former ethereum miners switching to bitcoin following the Merge, analysts told Bloomberg.

🪙⚡ Background… As you may remember, ethereum’s Merge was an event early last month that eliminated mining, aka using large amounts of computing power and energy to validate crypto transactions (and earn new coins), from its blockchain altogether.

Ethereum consumed about half of the energy used by bitcoin before the Merge. But since then, its overall power usage has dropped-off faster than crypto companies’ marketing spend after the Super Bowl, reportedly plummeting 99.9%.

• As a byproduct, global energy usage has decreased 0.2%.

📸 Big picture: Many former ethereum miners paid upfront for specially-designed computer chips, so they have an economic incentive to keep them plugged in. Ethan Vera, COO at crypto-mining firm Luxor Technologies, estimates 4% of all bitcoin mining done over the past two weeks came from former ethereum miners.

Another factor contributing to an all-time high in bitcoin mining is the relative abundance of cheap energy in late September and early October, as the weather becomes more mild in the Northern Hemisphere (aka less of a need for cooling buildings).

+Dive deeper: What happens to bitcoin after all 21 million coins are mined?

Disclosure: Luxor Tech was a past sponsor of the DONUT.