Revenues Down, Hashrates Up: 2018 Mining Outlook By The Numbers

Bitcoin mining may well be the lifeblood of the cryptocurrency but the industry is in a constant state of flux for a number of reasons.

Fundstrat's Tom Lee gave a bleak outlook for miners in March, reporting that the cost of mining a single Bitcoin was around $8038 - including electricity costs, cooling and the cost of equipment.

While margins may well have decreased, let's take a look at the overall mining stats around the world to see if we've had growth in mining capacity despite a less than ideal outlook for Bitcoin.

Chinese strangleholdAnother interesting factor in the mining industry is the makeup of the biggest mining pools around the world.

Data shows that Chinese mining pools still have a massive stake of the global Bitcoin mining sphere.

Meanwhile Chinese mining pools F2Pool and Antpool continue to operate and have mined the most blocks since 2009.But if we take a look at hash rates from the last three months, BTC.com, AntPool and ViaBTC account for over 50 percent.

Chip manufacturers unfounded concerns?Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer, has reduced its financial outlook this year - due in part to concerns about cryptocurrency mining profitability in 2018.According to CNBC, the company is concerned that uncertainty in cryptocurrency mining demand will negatively affect its revenue this year.

TSMC produces specialised cryptocurrency mining processors, with Chinese mining giants Bitmain one of their main clients, as well as GPU manufacturers nVidia and AMD.The company believes there could be less demand for its 28nm chip, which is used in cryptocurrency mining hardware.

"We estimate the break-even point for big mining pools should be $8,600, even if we assume a very low electricity cost the injection of new mining capacity will further increase the mining difficulty in 2H18. Even if Bitcoin's price stays the samewe believe mining profits would drop rapidly, according to our simulation."

Hashrates from the last three months clearly indicate that mining is dominated by pools of miners using ASIC hardware.