Crypto Miners Brought In $291M In April As Bitcoin Price Surged

Miners of cryptocurrency bitcoin made $291 million in so-called block rewards in April, which research firm Diar said was a 30 percent increase in monthly revenue.

According to a report in TheNextWeb, citing Diar, bitcoin miners earned an additional $14 million via transaction fees, a 250 percent revenue increase from March. Bitcoin miners earn money when they add successful blocks to the blockchain. The increase in the price of bitcoin during April is the reason the miners were able to earn more during the month.

Since the beginning of April, the price of bitcoin has jumped to more than $5,900 from $4,100. According to the report, Diar also said there was an increase in bitcoin usage which the firm credited to crypto traders sending digital tokens to and from exchanges in an effort to profit from price gains. The report noted so-called on-chain transactions are near the all-time high which happened in December of 2017 at the height of the bitcoin frenzy. Because of large amounts of on-chain activity, transaction fees were up 200 percent in April.

The price of bitcoin was higher on Tuesday (May 7), buoyed by news that Fidelity Investments will roll out a crypto trading platform in the coming weeks. According to Bloomberg, the trading will only be available for institutional clients. In October, Fidelity created Fidelity Digital Assets. “We currently have a select set of clients we’re supporting on our trading platform,” Fidelity spokeswoman Arlene Roberts said in an email to Bloomberg. “We will continue to roll out our services over the coming weeks and months based on our clients’ needs, jurisdictions, and other factors. Currently, our service offering is focused on bitcoin.”

Cryptocurrency also got a lift last week after reports surfaced Facebook is meeting with financial firms and online merchants as it gears up to launch a cryptocurrency payments systems. Code-named Project Libra, the idea is to roll out its own digital coin that Facebook users can send to each other and make online purchases.