In January, Bitcoin miners were dedicated to two things: mining bitcoins and moving their rewards and reserves to exchanges. The decision, part of the strategy to face the upcoming halving, generates strong selling pressure in the market, which put an end to the upward trend of the first fortnight.

After trading near $43,000 for almost a week in the middle of the month, bitcoin fell to $38,000 on January 23. However, on Friday, January 26, its market value shows a concrete rebound: it is sold at $41,380 at the time of writing this article.

The change in the downtrend of the last few days could hit a roadblock soon. We are talking about the massive sales of bitcoins by miners, which are added to the sale of more than 100,000 BTC corresponding to Grayscale's exchange-traded fund (ETF), GBTC.

Miners' sales volume has the potential to be several times higher. So far in January, miners have already moved more than 571,000 BTC to exchanges . That is, sales of more than USD 23,627 million can be completed if all of the transferred funds are settled.

The reason behind miners' BTC sales

The Bitcoin halving is an event scheduled by the network protocol to reduce the issuance of the cryptocurrency by half every 210,000 blocks (approximately four years). At each halving, the network reward to miners for each block they mine is reduced by half; in 2024, it will go from 6.25 BTC to 3.12 BTC.

This event could be motivating miners' bitcoin sales. On the one hand, they take profits by taking advantage of a high price compared to the last 40 months, since since May 2022 bitcoin had not been above $40,000 in value.

Furthermore, by selling their reserves, miners can access newer and more efficient equipment, necessary to be more profitable even earning half when mining a block. State-of-the-art equipment allows for greater processing capacity (more likely to mine a block) while spending less on electricity.

Both are key measures to create support before the halving and continue competing after this event happens. Meanwhile, in the future, the reduction in the supply of BTC for the coming years may play in favor of miners who know how to manage and survive the conditions determined by Satoshi Nakamoto when devising his revolutionary invention.