One week after its first attempt, bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin" target="_blank">BTC</a>) is once again approaching the $100,000 milestone on Friday as crypto prices surged higher alongside the return of U.S. traders following Thanksgiving.

The Coindesk Bitcoin Index climbed to a $98,690 session high during early U.S. hours, advancing 3.3% over the past 24 hours. The broad-market <a href="https://indices.coindesk.com/indices/cd20" target="_blank">CoinDesk 20 Index</a> surged 6.2% during the same period, indicating that altcoins led the advance. XRP, ADA, RENDER and HBAR booked double-digit gains during the day.

Traditional U.S. markets are having a shortened session today after being closed on Thursday's holiday. U.S.-listed bitcoin miners — which don't always rise just because the price of bitcoin gains —, are moving higher, led by Bitdeer's (BTDR) 15% advance to notch a fresh all-time high above $14. Major miners including MARA Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT), were all up 5%-10% in the first hours of the session. Crypto equities Coinbase (COIN), MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Semler Scientific (SMLR) lagged behind the miners.

Bitcoin futures on the <a href="https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/CME-BTC1!/" target="_blank">Chicago Mercantile Exchange</a> (CME) briefly surpassed the $100,000 level during the day before slightly retreating, per TradingView data. That's the second occasion after first hitting the milestone last Friday.

The price premium on futures relative to the spot market suggests strong institutional participation, with open interest for bitcoin CME futures sitting at all-time high levels.

The Coinbase Price Premium, which measures BTC spot price on Coinbase relative to the off-shore exchange Binance, also bounced back to positive territory since bitcoin pulled back below $91,000 earlier this week. The Coinbase Premium underscores that the rally is primarily driven by American market participants.

"Judging by order size, Coinbase whales are driving this bitcoin rally," Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, said in an <a href="https://x.com/ki_young_ju/status/1862452335202771444" target="_blank">X post</a>.

Nov. 30, is the last trading day of the month, so all eyes will be on bitcoin's (BTC) monthly candle. Bitcoin is less than 4% away from the psychological wall of $100,000. While the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/25/bitcoin-options-worth-9-b-expire-friday-traders-may-be-thankful-for-the-post-thanksgiving-volatility" target="_blank">$9 billion worth of options expiry</a> for bitcoin has just expired, which has sent the token slightly higher on the day to over $96,000. CoinGlass data shows that November has been one of the strongest months for bitcoin for several years, currently up over 36%, which would be the fourth best performing month since October 2021. November's rise has only been beaten thrice February 2024 (44%), January 2023 (40%) and October 2021 (40%). November's impressive performance is largely due to the fact that Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election earlier this month. Yet, bitcoin still has two more days until the official monthly close so there is still time to beat these milestones. On a quarterly timeframe, bitcoin is currently up 51% on the quarter with December still to come, on average the month of December returns around 5%. Q4 2024 has been the strongest quarter since Q1 which returned 69%.

It seems a matter of when not if, bitcoin breaks past $100,000 while it is on track towards an all-time high monthly close. Analyst Caleb Franzen believes there is more juice left to squeeze in this current bitcoin bull market. "BTCUSD monthly chart with the RSI indicator: Bitcoin bull markets often peak with the monthly RSI trading above 90, versus the current level of 75. Historically, we've seen each bull market peak with a lower RSI, illustrated by the descending trend line, Franzen says. The implication is that momentum is not yet "overheated" and that more upside can be squeezed out of this uptrend in the months/quarters ahead".

Similar market structure to Q4 2020

Bitcoin is in a similar market structure to Q4 2020, both periods saw strong green months in October and November, with a correction during the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/26/bitcoins-tumble-to-91-k-evokes-thanksgiving-massacre-of-2020" target="_blank">2020 Thanksgiving period</a>. In the back end of 2020, this was when bitcoin conclusively left behind the psychological barrier of $10,000 and went to $60,000 by April 2021. Glassnode data shows that when bitcoin is above the short-term holder's realized price (STHRP) it tends to mean bitcoin is in a bull market. In Q4 2020, bitcoin used the STHRP consistently as a support level, as the price continued higher. An expectation could be that bitcoin continues higher and using the STHRP as a support level mimicking Q4 2020. STHP reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which were moved within the last 155 days. These reflect the most probable coins to be spent on any given day. There is also a growing divergence between the realized price (which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for the entire coin supply) and the long-term holder realized price (LTHRP) which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which have not moved within the last 155-days. These reflect the least probable coins to be spent on any given day. A growing divergence tells us that new participants are entering the market while long-term holders are spending or realizing profits. One very small data point indicates that bitcoin could even hit $100,000 on Nov. 29. Bitcoin first hit $1,000 on Nov. 27, 2013. Four years and one day later, bitcoin first hit $10,000. Could we see $100,000, just seven years and one day later?

Publicly traded bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/ " target="_blank">BTC</a>) miners are approaching the milestone of an aggregated $40 billion market cap, according to <a href="https://farside.co.uk/miners/" target="_blank">Farside data</a>, doubling in seven months as bitcoin's price rocketed through multiple record highs to approach six figures for the first time.

Miners' biggest challenge is revenue. The reward they receive for confirming blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain was cut <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/bitcoin-halving-explained" target="_blank">50% in April</a>, when their combined market cap was about $20 billion. In this current epoch, only 450 bitcoin are mined a day and fees paid to miners remain at cycle lows, just 10 BTC ($946,000) on Nov. 27 according to Glassnode data.

That means they either have to diversify revenue streams or produce bitcoin at a cheaper cost than the spot price, currently about $96,000.

That's a challenge that is about to become more difficult. The mining difficulty, which measures how hard it is to produce the blockchain's blocks, is expected to increase by a further 3% at some point in the next few days.

Mining difficulty, already firmly above <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/05/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-tops-100t-for-first-time-piling-pressure-on-small-miners" target="_blank">1 trillion</a>, automatically adjusts every 2016 blocks or roughly every two weeks. The higher the difficulty, the harder — and costlier — for miners to produce a new block.

The heart of the issue is the soaring hashrate, which has held above 700 exahash per second (EH/s) for more than a month. The hashrate is the computational power required to mine and process transactions on a <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2020/12/16/what-is-proof-of-work/ " target="_blank">proof-of-work blockchain</a> like Bitcoin.

On a seven-day moving average, the hashrate is currently at 726 EH/s, continuing to put in higher highs and higher lows since mid-year, according to Glassnode data.

In 2024, many miners have diversified their revenue streams by pivoting into the AI and high-performance computing (HPC) industries, where there is soaring demand for locations that can host the computing power they need.

One example is IREN (IREN), whose shares surged 30% on Wednesday on <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/11/27/bitcoin-miner-iren-surges-on-renewed-ai-interest-possible-btc-dividend-payment" target="_blank">renewed AI interest</a>.

Other, such as MARA Holdings (MARA), are leveraging their bitcoin stashes and bumping up their bitcoin balance sheet holdings. As of Nov. 27, MARA added a <a href="https://x.com/MARAHoldings/status/1861848253362274469" target="_blank">further 703 BTC</a> after selling a 0% $1 billion convertible note to raise the funds. The company now owns a total 34,794 BTC.

The CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF is a proxy for publicly traded miners. Its share price is up 60% year-to-date, which is underperforming bitcoin's 113%.

One week after its first attempt, bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin" target="_blank">BTC</a>) is once again approaching the $100,000 milestone on Friday as crypto prices surged higher alongside the return of U.S. traders following Thanksgiving.

The Coindesk Bitcoin Index climbed to a $98,690 session high during early U.S. hours, advancing 3.3% over the past 24 hours. The broad-market <a href="https://indices.coindesk.com/indices/cd20" target="_blank">CoinDesk 20 Index</a> surged 6.2% during the same period, indicating that altcoins led the advance. XRP, ADA, RENDER and HBAR booked double-digit gains during the day.

Traditional U.S. markets are having a shortened session today after being closed on Thursday's holiday. U.S.-listed bitcoin miners — which don't always rise just because the price of bitcoin gains —, are moving higher, led by Bitdeer's (BTDR) 15% advance to notch a fresh all-time high above $14. Major miners including MARA Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT), were all up 5%-10% in the first hours of the session. Crypto equities Coinbase (COIN), MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Semler Scientific (SMLR) lagged behind the miners.

Bitcoin futures on the <a href="https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/CME-BTC1!/" target="_blank">Chicago Mercantile Exchange</a> (CME) briefly surpassed the $100,000 level during the day before slightly retreating, per TradingView data. That's the second occasion after first hitting the milestone last Friday.

The price premium on futures relative to the spot market suggests strong institutional participation, with open interest for bitcoin CME futures sitting at all-time high levels.

The Coinbase Price Premium, which measures BTC spot price on Coinbase relative to the off-shore exchange Binance, also bounced back to positive territory since bitcoin pulled back below $91,000 earlier this week. The Coinbase Premium underscores that the rally is primarily driven by American market participants.

"Judging by order size, Coinbase whales are driving this bitcoin rally," Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, said in an <a href="https://x.com/ki_young_ju/status/1862452335202771444" target="_blank">X post</a>.

Nov. 30, is the last trading day of the month, so all eyes will be on bitcoin's (BTC) monthly candle. Bitcoin is less than 4% away from the psychological wall of $100,000. While the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/25/bitcoin-options-worth-9-b-expire-friday-traders-may-be-thankful-for-the-post-thanksgiving-volatility" target="_blank">$9 billion worth of options expiry</a> for bitcoin has just expired, which has sent the token slightly higher on the day to over $96,000. CoinGlass data shows that November has been one of the strongest months for bitcoin for several years, currently up over 36%, which would be the fourth best performing month since October 2021. November's rise has only been beaten thrice February 2024 (44%), January 2023 (40%) and October 2021 (40%). November's impressive performance is largely due to the fact that Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election earlier this month. Yet, bitcoin still has two more days until the official monthly close so there is still time to beat these milestones. On a quarterly timeframe, bitcoin is currently up 51% on the quarter with December still to come, on average the month of December returns around 5%. Q4 2024 has been the strongest quarter since Q1 which returned 69%.

It seems a matter of when not if, bitcoin breaks past $100,000 while it is on track towards an all-time high monthly close. Analyst Caleb Franzen believes there is more juice left to squeeze in this current bitcoin bull market. "BTCUSD monthly chart with the RSI indicator: Bitcoin bull markets often peak with the monthly RSI trading above 90, versus the current level of 75. Historically, we've seen each bull market peak with a lower RSI, illustrated by the descending trend line, Franzen says. The implication is that momentum is not yet "overheated" and that more upside can be squeezed out of this uptrend in the months/quarters ahead".

Similar market structure to Q4 2020

Bitcoin is in a similar market structure to Q4 2020, both periods saw strong green months in October and November, with a correction during the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/26/bitcoins-tumble-to-91-k-evokes-thanksgiving-massacre-of-2020" target="_blank">2020 Thanksgiving period</a>. In the back end of 2020, this was when bitcoin conclusively left behind the psychological barrier of $10,000 and went to $60,000 by April 2021. Glassnode data shows that when bitcoin is above the short-term holder's realized price (STHRP) it tends to mean bitcoin is in a bull market. In Q4 2020, bitcoin used the STHRP consistently as a support level, as the price continued higher. An expectation could be that bitcoin continues higher and using the STHRP as a support level mimicking Q4 2020. STHP reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which were moved within the last 155 days. These reflect the most probable coins to be spent on any given day. There is also a growing divergence between the realized price (which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for the entire coin supply) and the long-term holder realized price (LTHRP) which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which have not moved within the last 155-days. These reflect the least probable coins to be spent on any given day. A growing divergence tells us that new participants are entering the market while long-term holders are spending or realizing profits. One very small data point indicates that bitcoin could even hit $100,000 on Nov. 29. Bitcoin first hit $1,000 on Nov. 27, 2013. Four years and one day later, bitcoin first hit $10,000. Could we see $100,000, just seven years and one day later?

Publicly traded bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/ " target="_blank">BTC</a>) miners are approaching the milestone of an aggregated $40 billion market cap, according to <a href="https://farside.co.uk/miners/" target="_blank">Farside data</a>, doubling in seven months as bitcoin's price rocketed through multiple record highs to approach six figures for the first time.

Miners' biggest challenge is revenue. The reward they receive for confirming blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain was cut <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/bitcoin-halving-explained" target="_blank">50% in April</a>, when their combined market cap was about $20 billion. In this current epoch, only 450 bitcoin are mined a day and fees paid to miners remain at cycle lows, just 10 BTC ($946,000) on Nov. 27 according to Glassnode data.

That means they either have to diversify revenue streams or produce bitcoin at a cheaper cost than the spot price, currently about $96,000.

That's a challenge that is about to become more difficult. The mining difficulty, which measures how hard it is to produce the blockchain's blocks, is expected to increase by a further 3% at some point in the next few days.

Mining difficulty, already firmly above <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/05/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-tops-100t-for-first-time-piling-pressure-on-small-miners" target="_blank">1 trillion</a>, automatically adjusts every 2016 blocks or roughly every two weeks. The higher the difficulty, the harder — and costlier — for miners to produce a new block.

The heart of the issue is the soaring hashrate, which has held above 700 exahash per second (EH/s) for more than a month. The hashrate is the computational power required to mine and process transactions on a <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2020/12/16/what-is-proof-of-work/ " target="_blank">proof-of-work blockchain</a> like Bitcoin.

On a seven-day moving average, the hashrate is currently at 726 EH/s, continuing to put in higher highs and higher lows since mid-year, according to Glassnode data.

In 2024, many miners have diversified their revenue streams by pivoting into the AI and high-performance computing (HPC) industries, where there is soaring demand for locations that can host the computing power they need.

One example is IREN (IREN), whose shares surged 30% on Wednesday on <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/11/27/bitcoin-miner-iren-surges-on-renewed-ai-interest-possible-btc-dividend-payment" target="_blank">renewed AI interest</a>.

Other, such as MARA Holdings (MARA), are leveraging their bitcoin stashes and bumping up their bitcoin balance sheet holdings. As of Nov. 27, MARA added a <a href="https://x.com/MARAHoldings/status/1861848253362274469" target="_blank">further 703 BTC</a> after selling a 0% $1 billion convertible note to raise the funds. The company now owns a total 34,794 BTC.

The CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF is a proxy for publicly traded miners. Its share price is up 60% year-to-date, which is underperforming bitcoin's 113%.

Nov. 30, is the last trading day of the month, so all eyes will be on bitcoin's (BTC) monthly candle. Bitcoin is less than 4% away from the psychological wall of $100,000. While the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/25/bitcoin-options-worth-9-b-expire-friday-traders-may-be-thankful-for-the-post-thanksgiving-volatility" target="_blank">$9 billion worth of options expiry</a> for bitcoin has just expired, which has sent the token slightly higher on the day to over $96,000. CoinGlass data shows that November has been one of the strongest months for bitcoin for several years, currently up over 36%, which would be the fourth best performing month since October 2021. November's rise has only been beaten thrice February 2024 (44%), January 2023 (40%) and October 2021 (40%). November's impressive performance is largely due to the fact that Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election earlier this month. Yet, bitcoin still has two more days until the official monthly close so there is still time to beat these milestones. On a quarterly timeframe, bitcoin is currently up 51% on the quarter with December still to come, on average the month of December returns around 5%. Q4 2024 has been the strongest quarter since Q1 which returned 69%.

It seems a matter of when not if, bitcoin breaks past $100,000 while it is on track towards an all-time high monthly close. Analyst Caleb Franzen believes there is more juice left to squeeze in this current bitcoin bull market. "BTCUSD monthly chart with the RSI indicator: Bitcoin bull markets often peak with the monthly RSI trading above 90, versus the current level of 75. Historically, we've seen each bull market peak with a lower RSI, illustrated by the descending trend line, Franzen says. The implication is that momentum is not yet "overheated" and that more upside can be squeezed out of this uptrend in the months/quarters ahead".

Similar market structure to Q4 2020

Bitcoin is in a similar market structure to Q4 2020, both periods saw strong green months in October and November, with a correction during the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/26/bitcoins-tumble-to-91-k-evokes-thanksgiving-massacre-of-2020" target="_blank">2020 Thanksgiving period</a>. In the back end of 2020, this was when bitcoin conclusively left behind the psychological barrier of $10,000 and went to $60,000 by April 2021. Glassnode data shows that when bitcoin is above the short-term holder's realized price (STHRP) it tends to mean bitcoin is in a bull market. In Q4 2020, bitcoin used the STHRP consistently as a support level, as the price continued higher. An expectation could be that bitcoin continues higher and using the STHRP as a support level mimicking Q4 2020. STHP reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which were moved within the last 155 days. These reflect the most probable coins to be spent on any given day. There is also a growing divergence between the realized price (which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for the entire coin supply) and the long-term holder realized price (LTHRP) which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which have not moved within the last 155-days. These reflect the least probable coins to be spent on any given day. A growing divergence tells us that new participants are entering the market while long-term holders are spending or realizing profits. One very small data point indicates that bitcoin could even hit $100,000 on Nov. 29. Bitcoin first hit $1,000 on Nov. 27, 2013. Four years and one day later, bitcoin first hit $10,000. Could we see $100,000, just seven years and one day later?

Publicly traded bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/ " target="_blank">BTC</a>) miners are approaching the milestone of an aggregated $40 billion market cap, according to <a href="https://farside.co.uk/miners/" target="_blank">Farside data</a>, doubling in seven months as bitcoin's price rocketed through multiple record highs to approach six figures for the first time.

Miners' biggest challenge is revenue. The reward they receive for confirming blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain was cut <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/bitcoin-halving-explained" target="_blank">50% in April</a>, when their combined market cap was about $20 billion. In this current epoch, only 450 bitcoin are mined a day and fees paid to miners remain at cycle lows, just 10 BTC ($946,000) on Nov. 27 according to Glassnode data.

That means they either have to diversify revenue streams or produce bitcoin at a cheaper cost than the spot price, currently about $96,000.

That's a challenge that is about to become more difficult. The mining difficulty, which measures how hard it is to produce the blockchain's blocks, is expected to increase by a further 3% at some point in the next few days.

Mining difficulty, already firmly above <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/05/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-tops-100t-for-first-time-piling-pressure-on-small-miners" target="_blank">1 trillion</a>, automatically adjusts every 2016 blocks or roughly every two weeks. The higher the difficulty, the harder — and costlier — for miners to produce a new block.

The heart of the issue is the soaring hashrate, which has held above 700 exahash per second (EH/s) for more than a month. The hashrate is the computational power required to mine and process transactions on a <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2020/12/16/what-is-proof-of-work/ " target="_blank">proof-of-work blockchain</a> like Bitcoin.

On a seven-day moving average, the hashrate is currently at 726 EH/s, continuing to put in higher highs and higher lows since mid-year, according to Glassnode data.

In 2024, many miners have diversified their revenue streams by pivoting into the AI and high-performance computing (HPC) industries, where there is soaring demand for locations that can host the computing power they need.

One example is IREN (IREN), whose shares surged 30% on Wednesday on <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/11/27/bitcoin-miner-iren-surges-on-renewed-ai-interest-possible-btc-dividend-payment" target="_blank">renewed AI interest</a>.

Other, such as MARA Holdings (MARA), are leveraging their bitcoin stashes and bumping up their bitcoin balance sheet holdings. As of Nov. 27, MARA added a <a href="https://x.com/MARAHoldings/status/1861848253362274469" target="_blank">further 703 BTC</a> after selling a 0% $1 billion convertible note to raise the funds. The company now owns a total 34,794 BTC.

The CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF is a proxy for publicly traded miners. Its share price is up 60% year-to-date, which is underperforming bitcoin's 113%.

One week after its first attempt, bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin" target="_blank">BTC</a>) is once again approaching the $100,000 milestone on Friday as crypto prices surged higher alongside the return of U.S. traders following Thanksgiving.

The Coindesk Bitcoin Index climbed to a $98,690 session high during early U.S. hours, advancing 3.3% over the past 24 hours. The broad-market <a href="https://indices.coindesk.com/indices/cd20" target="_blank">CoinDesk 20 Index</a> surged 6.2% during the same period, indicating that altcoins led the advance. XRP, ADA, RENDER and HBAR booked double-digit gains during the day.

Traditional U.S. markets are having a shortened session today after being closed on Thursday's holiday. U.S.-listed bitcoin miners — which don't always rise just because the price of bitcoin gains —, are moving higher, led by Bitdeer's (BTDR) 15% advance to notch a fresh all-time high above $14. Major miners including MARA Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT), were all up 5%-10% in the first hours of the session. Crypto equities Coinbase (COIN), MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Semler Scientific (SMLR) lagged behind the miners.

Bitcoin futures on the <a href="https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/CME-BTC1!/" target="_blank">Chicago Mercantile Exchange</a> (CME) briefly surpassed the $100,000 level during the day before slightly retreating, per TradingView data. That's the second occasion after first hitting the milestone last Friday.

The price premium on futures relative to the spot market suggests strong institutional participation, with open interest for bitcoin CME futures sitting at all-time high levels.

The Coinbase Price Premium, which measures BTC spot price on Coinbase relative to the off-shore exchange Binance, also bounced back to positive territory since bitcoin pulled back below $91,000 earlier this week. The Coinbase Premium underscores that the rally is primarily driven by American market participants.

"Judging by order size, Coinbase whales are driving this bitcoin rally," Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, said in an <a href="https://x.com/ki_young_ju/status/1862452335202771444" target="_blank">X post</a>.

Nov. 30, is the last trading day of the month, so all eyes will be on bitcoin's (BTC) monthly candle. Bitcoin is less than 4% away from the psychological wall of $100,000. While the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/25/bitcoin-options-worth-9-b-expire-friday-traders-may-be-thankful-for-the-post-thanksgiving-volatility" target="_blank">$9 billion worth of options expiry</a> for bitcoin has just expired, which has sent the token slightly higher on the day to over $96,000. CoinGlass data shows that November has been one of the strongest months for bitcoin for several years, currently up over 36%, which would be the fourth best performing month since October 2021. November's rise has only been beaten thrice February 2024 (44%), January 2023 (40%) and October 2021 (40%). November's impressive performance is largely due to the fact that Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election earlier this month. Yet, bitcoin still has two more days until the official monthly close so there is still time to beat these milestones. On a quarterly timeframe, bitcoin is currently up 51% on the quarter with December still to come, on average the month of December returns around 5%. Q4 2024 has been the strongest quarter since Q1 which returned 69%.

It seems a matter of when not if, bitcoin breaks past $100,000 while it is on track towards an all-time high monthly close. Analyst Caleb Franzen believes there is more juice left to squeeze in this current bitcoin bull market. "BTCUSD monthly chart with the RSI indicator: Bitcoin bull markets often peak with the monthly RSI trading above 90, versus the current level of 75. Historically, we've seen each bull market peak with a lower RSI, illustrated by the descending trend line, Franzen says. The implication is that momentum is not yet "overheated" and that more upside can be squeezed out of this uptrend in the months/quarters ahead".

Similar market structure to Q4 2020

Bitcoin is in a similar market structure to Q4 2020, both periods saw strong green months in October and November, with a correction during the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/26/bitcoins-tumble-to-91-k-evokes-thanksgiving-massacre-of-2020" target="_blank">2020 Thanksgiving period</a>. In the back end of 2020, this was when bitcoin conclusively left behind the psychological barrier of $10,000 and went to $60,000 by April 2021. Glassnode data shows that when bitcoin is above the short-term holder's realized price (STHRP) it tends to mean bitcoin is in a bull market. In Q4 2020, bitcoin used the STHRP consistently as a support level, as the price continued higher. An expectation could be that bitcoin continues higher and using the STHRP as a support level mimicking Q4 2020. STHP reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which were moved within the last 155 days. These reflect the most probable coins to be spent on any given day. There is also a growing divergence between the realized price (which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for the entire coin supply) and the long-term holder realized price (LTHRP) which reflects the average on-chain acquisition price for coins held outside exchange reserves, which have not moved within the last 155-days. These reflect the least probable coins to be spent on any given day. A growing divergence tells us that new participants are entering the market while long-term holders are spending or realizing profits. One very small data point indicates that bitcoin could even hit $100,000 on Nov. 29. Bitcoin first hit $1,000 on Nov. 27, 2013. Four years and one day later, bitcoin first hit $10,000. Could we see $100,000, just seven years and one day later?

Publicly traded bitcoin (<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/ " target="_blank">BTC</a>) miners are approaching the milestone of an aggregated $40 billion market cap, according to <a href="https://farside.co.uk/miners/" target="_blank">Farside data</a>, doubling in seven months as bitcoin's price rocketed through multiple record highs to approach six figures for the first time.

Miners' biggest challenge is revenue. The reward they receive for confirming blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain was cut <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/bitcoin-halving-explained" target="_blank">50% in April</a>, when their combined market cap was about $20 billion. In this current epoch, only 450 bitcoin are mined a day and fees paid to miners remain at cycle lows, just 10 BTC ($946,000) on Nov. 27 according to Glassnode data.

That means they either have to diversify revenue streams or produce bitcoin at a cheaper cost than the spot price, currently about $96,000.

That's a challenge that is about to become more difficult. The mining difficulty, which measures how hard it is to produce the blockchain's blocks, is expected to increase by a further 3% at some point in the next few days.

Mining difficulty, already firmly above <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/05/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-tops-100t-for-first-time-piling-pressure-on-small-miners" target="_blank">1 trillion</a>, automatically adjusts every 2016 blocks or roughly every two weeks. The higher the difficulty, the harder — and costlier — for miners to produce a new block.

The heart of the issue is the soaring hashrate, which has held above 700 exahash per second (EH/s) for more than a month. The hashrate is the computational power required to mine and process transactions on a <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/learn/2020/12/16/what-is-proof-of-work/ " target="_blank">proof-of-work blockchain</a> like Bitcoin.

On a seven-day moving average, the hashrate is currently at 726 EH/s, continuing to put in higher highs and higher lows since mid-year, according to Glassnode data.

In 2024, many miners have diversified their revenue streams by pivoting into the AI and high-performance computing (HPC) industries, where there is soaring demand for locations that can host the computing power they need.

One example is IREN (IREN), whose shares surged 30% on Wednesday on <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/11/27/bitcoin-miner-iren-surges-on-renewed-ai-interest-possible-btc-dividend-payment" target="_blank">renewed AI interest</a>.

Other, such as MARA Holdings (MARA), are leveraging their bitcoin stashes and bumping up their bitcoin balance sheet holdings. As of Nov. 27, MARA added a <a href="https://x.com/MARAHoldings/status/1861848253362274469" target="_blank">further 703 BTC</a> after selling a 0% $1 billion convertible note to raise the funds. The company now owns a total 34,794 BTC.

The CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF is a proxy for publicly traded miners. Its share price is up 60% year-to-date, which is underperforming bitcoin's 113%.