Bitcoin Miners Bail, While Cryptocurrency Capitalization Drops 83% Since January

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"Bitcoin miners hit hard by the cryptocurrency's crash may be throwing in the towel," reports Bloomberg:
The Bitcoin network's hash rate, one way of gauging the computing power dedicated to mining the digital currency, dropped about 24 percent from an all-time high at the end of August through Nov. 24, according to Blockchain.com. While the decline may have partially resulted from miners switching to other cryptocurrencies, JPMorgan Chase & Co. says some in the industry are losing money after Bitcoin's price tumbled. "This suggests that prices have declined to a point where mining is becoming uneconomical for some," JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a Nov. 23 report, in reference to the falling hash rate...

The break-even cost to mine a single Bitcoin using Bitmain's Antminer S9 rig was estimated at $7,000 in a Nov. 16 report by Fundstrat Global Advisors, though the level is probably lower for some miners with access to cheap electricity and equipment... A big miner shakeout could be bad news for chipmakers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Nvidia Corp. who supply the industry, along with mining-rig designers like Bitmain Technologies Ltd. that are pursuing initial public offerings.

The price of bitcoin dropped 37.4% just in the month of November -- its worst monthly decline in seven years, since August 2011 when it fell from roughly $8 to $4.80. And the decline in bitcoin also dragged down 24 of the top 25 largest cryptocurrencies, reports CoinDesk. "What's more, the average performance of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization was -30 percent, while the average performance of all 25 was -37 percent..." 

"The total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market has now lost over $690 billion and 83 percent of its value since reaching its all time high north of $820 billion this past January, according to CoinMarketCap."