“After the halving, average daily network fees skyrocketed, easing the pain experienced by Bitcoin miners. However, as the initial excitement of the influx of users into the Runes protocol faded, fees also fell,” Kaiko analysts wrote in a weekly note titled “The Pain of Truth for Miners.”

“The recent fee decline could lead to selling pressure from miners,” analysts added.

The price of Bitcoin is already on the long-closed cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox is at risk of falling due to its $9 billion payment to its creditors. Potential selling pressure from miners could worsen the situation.

Bitcoin miners earn their income from two sources: block rewards and transaction fees. Miners earn a fixed amount of BTC for adding new blocks to the blockchain, as well as a transaction fee for including transactions in the blocks they mine.

Last month’s halving reduced coin emissions per block from 6.25 BTC to 3,125 BTC. This created the need to compensate for this deficit, which negatively affected miner profitability, by increasing transaction fees and the price of Bitcoin.

It initially cooperated, with the average transaction fee jumping from 0.0003 BTC just after the halving to a six-year high of 0.00199 BTC, according to data tracked by Glassnode. This rise was due to investors’ rush to “dig” and “mint” tokens onto the Bitcoin blockchain via the Fungible token protocol Runes.

However, this Runes-driven excitement was short-lived and the average wage quickly fell back to pre-halving levels. As of Tuesday, the average transaction fee was 0.000039 BTC.

CoinDesk data shows that the Bitcoin price, meanwhile, has fallen more than 4% since the halving, falling to $61,990.

Kaiko said, “Higher fees had alleviated some of the post-halving stress for Bitcoin miners, but now they are starting to feel the pressure of halved miner rewards. Halving has typically been a selling event for Bitcoin miners. Since the process of creating new blocks imposes significant costs, miners are selling to cover their costs.” “It forces us to do it,” he said.

As of press time, wallets associated with miners held 1,805 million BTC ($111.5 billion), according to Glassnode data.

10x Research President Markus Thielen stated that miners expect to sell approximately $5 billion worth of BTC in the coming months.

Explaining his view, Thielen said, “If the price isn’t going up, why would they keep stock?” said.

Cryptocurrency exchange Deribit made a similar observation and considered an option strategy called “bear call spread” to manage a potential miner-driven decline in Bitcoin price.

Deribit said, “Bitcoin is making lower highs and miners are under pressure to sell their coins, facing decreasing revenue and fees. The Bear Call Spread strategy may be a suitable approach for investors trying to find their way in this market.”

The Bear Call Spread is a two-legged option strategy used when the market outlook is moderately bearish.