Bitcoin Hits $100K as Miners Earn $71.49 Billion in Historic Milestone

• Bitcoin miners have collectively earned $71.49 billion since inception, with $67.31 billion from block subsidies and $4.18 billion from transaction fees.
• The network’s hash rate surged to over 804 quadrillion hashes per second in 2024, reflecting increased mining activity and computational power.
• Bitcoin’s journey to $100,000 involved 873,304 mined blocks and 1.12 billion transactions, demonstrating its robust adoption and investment potential.

The price of Bitcoin on December 5, 2024, rose to $100 000 thus becoming the first time to achieve the record high prices. This was realized when it completed 5256 trading days since its launch on the market. After this, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency even spiked through the $2 trillion level, if briefly, making it one of the most historic events.

Bitcoin miners have been paid a total of $71.49 billion for their involvement in the Bitcoin network from its creation up to this year, as shown by figures from Glassnode – an on-chain data analytics platform. This revenue comprises $ 67.31 billion in block subsidization and $ 4.18 billion in transaction fees. These figures underscore the robust economic incentives supporting the Bitcoin network, which has seen 19,791,952 BTC mined to date, accounting for 94.2% of its total 21 million supply cap.

Record-Setting Network Growth

As of December 5, Bitcoin miners had collectively mined 873,304 blocks, with an average block time of 11.8 minutes. Over the years, the network’s difficulty has undergone 418 adjustments, reaching an impressive 446,331,432,498,125,300,000,000. This growth in difficulty reflects the increasing computational power dedicated to securing the network.

Hashrate surged from 128,185 hashes per second at its early stages to 804,407,834,059,443,100,000 hashes per second when Bitcoin reached $100,000. Notably, 37% of the total hashes were computed in 2024 alone, highlighting the rapid expansion in mining activity.

Transaction Volume and Investor Performance

Over the entire time, Bitcoin’s network has received unfiltered 1.12 billion transactions with a total transfer value of 131 trillion. These figures show the increasing use of cryptocurrency across both large and small-scale purchases.

This period saw both the high and the low of investment for investors that prevailed through it. Glassnode on-chain metrics suggest that betters realized a total net amount of $1,27T up from the sales while suffering net losses of about $592B for the same period. This brings the fluctuations and the high risk of using Bitcoin as an investment asset to the fore.

Historic Price Movements

The price of Bitcoin has risen towards its $100,000 target in several steps and dips with large movements. The cryptocurrency has traded positively 72 percent of the time having recorded an average of 37.4 percent increase in its value each time while it has traded negatively 71 percent of the time with an average loss of 14.2 percent of its value.

Therefore, by December 2024, Bitcoin rose by nearly 2% which was $100,290 after 24 hours. This achievement solidifies Bitcoin’s role as a disruptive product in the international financial system. It bears witness to the continual belief in the upside of the network from miners, investors, and the public.