The economic pressures on Bitcoin miners have intensified, leading to a significant 'capitulation' event reminiscent of the FTX exchange collapse in 2022. Oluwapelumi Adejumo, a notable figure at BeInCrypto, reported a 7.6% drop in the Bitcoin mining hashrate this month. This decline follows the recent halving of Bitcoin, resulting in miner rewards reduced to 3.125 BTC.

Miner capitulation occurs when the costs of operation, such as electricity and hardware, surpass the revenue generated from Bitcoin mining. Consequently, many miners are now closing down their mining operations to mitigate losses. CryptoQuant data highlights this trend, showing that the Bitcoin mining hashrate is aligning with the levels seen during the FTX collapse in 2022.

Furthermore, the decrease in network activity has significantly impacted miners' incomes. Daily Rune transactions have drastically plummeted from a peak of over 753,000 on April 23 to just 21,861 on June 29, marking a staggering 90% decrease. As a result, total earnings from Rune transactions for miners have plunged to below 2 BTC in the recent week, down from a high of over 1,000 BTC on April 20.

In response to these challenges, miners have escalated their selling activities, offloading approximately 30,000 BTC valued at $2 billion last week. To diversify their revenue streams, miners are exploring new areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and other Proof-of-Work (PoW) assets. Companies like Core Scientific and Hut 8 have secured substantial funding for AI expansion, while Marathon Digital, the leading BTC mining company, has ventured into mining Kaspa, a PoW project, having mined 93 million KAS valued at around $15 million as of June 25.