The price of Bitcoin rose this week over widespread excitement related to the possible approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States.
This prompted the Bitcoin mining revenue to rise and reach a new yearly high.
The rise
According to data from Blockchain.com, on November 9th, Bitcoin mining revenue had reached $42,386,514.038, which saw it top the previous high it had established for the year.
The high had been recorded this year on May 8th at $41,744,197.067. The rise in mining revenue has pushed it higher than it had been back in May during the Ordinals craze.
The rise in mining revenue of Bitcoin came as the price of Bitcoin climbed on November 9th to surpass $37,000.
This was primarily because of the rising anticipation related to the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF by the US SEC.
Currently, the price of Bitcoin has reached $37,200, which is a rise of 7.5% in the week. Lane Kasselman, the President of Blockchain.com, said two main factors affect the revenue of Bitcoin miners.
First off, it is the price of Bitcoin itself and secondly, the revenue is also dependent on how busy the Bitcoin Network is.
Network congestion
He said that a busier network automatically indicates that a higher number of people are using it and they have to pay a higher fee when conducting transactions.
Back in May, the Bitcoin network had been highly congested, even though the price of the original crypto token had not been that high, which had pushed up the miner earnings.
However, the recent increase in miners’ earnings has been seen due to the increasing price of Bitcoin. The network congestion in May happened because of a high demand for Ordinals.
There had been a daily increase in miners’ revenues to reach $40 million, but the price of Bitcoin had been much lower than its current level, as it had stood at $27,000.
SEC and Bitcoin ETFs
The price surge in the leading crypto in the market has come due to optimism over a possible approval of a Bitcoin ETF by the US SEC.
There are some pending ETF applications and their expiry deadlines are drawing closer, which could see 12 BTC ETFs get approved simultaneously.
This comes at a time when there have been reports of Grayscale in talks with the SEC about the details of its application for converting its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot Bitcoin ETF.
These talks come after the SEC had been ordered by a US Court of Appeals in the previous month to review the application, after describing the regulator’s actions as ‘capricious and arbitrary’.
Up until now, the SEC has rejected every ETF application and has cited risks of market manipulation as the reason for doing so.
If a spot Bitcoin ETF is approved, it would be a major milestone for the crypto industry and would boost Bitcoin’s adoption amongst institutional investors.