What To Do When Bitcoin Falls Below the 30-Day Average

Bear markets and sudden price drops are a reality of Bitcoin mining. When the fiat price of Bitcoin crashes, miners face a psychological and mathematical crisis: suddenly, they have to sell a significantly larger portion of their freshly mined Bitcoin just to cover the exact same electricity bill.

If the price drops far enough, it can trigger the dreaded "miner capitulation," where miners are forced to sell their entire daily yield just to break even, or worse, unplug their machines entirely.

Here is the strategic playbook for what to do when Bitcoin falls significantly below its 30-day average.

1. Do Not Panic Sell Your Treasury

When the price drops 20% below the 30-day average, human psychology screams at you to sell everything before it goes lower. Mathematically, this is the worst time to sell. By selling into a heavy dip to cover OPEX, you are giving up a massive percentage of your future upside.

2. Deploy Your Fiat Cash Reserves

If you have been following a dynamic Sell-to-Cover strategy during the good times (selling slightly extra when the price was heavily above the average), you should have a fiat cash reserve.

Now is the time to use it.

Instead of selling 100% of the Bitcoin needed to cover today's OPEX, you should sell a reduced amount—for example, only 75%. You take the remaining 25% needed to pay the power company out of your fiat cash reserves. This allows you to preserve your Bitcoin stack when the exchange rate is highly unfavorable to you.

3. Check Real-Time Profitability

You must know your strict break-even point. If the price of Bitcoin drops so severely that your daily electricity cost is higher than the value of the Bitcoin you mined that day, you are mining at a loss.

At this point, you have two choices:

1. Unplug: Turn off the most inefficient machines (e.g., older generation ASICs) until difficulty drops or price recovers.
2. Mine at a Loss (Speculative): You continue to mine, paying the difference out of pocket, effectively "buying" Bitcoin at a premium because you believe the long-term price will recover.

To always know exactly where you stand, use the OPEX Calculator. It will tell you precisely if your daily yield covers your daily costs, and give you the mathematical target of exactly what fraction of BTC to sell to survive the dip.