To add to the misery to bitcoin enthusiasts, the act of finding or “mining” the cryptocurrency has become unprofitable as the price continues to crater.

This raises further questions about the viability of the accounting system supporting the cryptocurrency.

The volatile asset is now fetching under $3,200, off more than 84 percent from the highs seen during its “tulip mania” phase of a year ago.

At that point, in late 2017, accelerating numbers of people were spending real dollars on computers and electricity to create or uncover the “coins,” using advanced algorithms.

As they engaged in the then-lucrative business of mining for bitcoin, these entrepreneurs were conducting the “blockchain“ transactions that in fact tell you how much is in your “wallet“ and allow trading to happen.

Without mining, this system, which has no Federal Reserve or other financial institution backing it up, would cease to function.

Bitcoin miner revenues hit $4.7 billion through the end of September, up $1.4 billion over the first three quarters of 2017, reports Diar, a cryptocurrency bulletin.

At the same time, miners have been spending more and more money on sophisticated computer rigs and the electricity they devour.

As of January 2018, a month in which bitcoin opened at over $13,000, miners paying retail electric rates took home an 86 percent profit on just over $1 billion; by September, the coins were trading in the $6,000 neighborhood, mining revenues had fallen in half, and profit margins were close to nil.

“The investment proposition for smaller miners held true throughout most of this year but has since become questionable on the back of an increase of computing power competing for the coinbase reward,“ the Diar report states.

Since then, the perilous life of the bitcoin miner has only gotten worse, with little relief on the cost end even as the price has fallen in half again in what some are calling a death spiral.

Even some of the big guys are exiting: On Dec. 10, Chinese crypto mining giant Bitmain closed its development center in Israel, firing all 23 employees working on the company’s Connect BTC mining pool.

“Mining is only profitable at this point in China and Iceland,“ says James Rickards, strategic director at Meraglim, a financial analytics firm. “They both have very low electricity rates, and Iceland has the added advantage of lower temperatures to cool computers.”

“If you’re a miner and you can’t make money, that could mean that nobody wants to validate“ Bitcoin transactions, he says. “I believe we’re at that point and that’s why this drop has been so precipitous.”

Offering a somewhat less bleak prognosis is Nick Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.

“I’ve had a lot more questions about Bitcoin in the last 30 days and I tell people I don’t think we’re at the bottom yet,“ he says. “We’re in what I call a ‘technological winter.’ It’s like what happened in the Nasdaq bubble. There was a recovery but it took many years.”

At the same time, Colas says he is definitely not expecting the blockchain system itself to shut down anytime soon. “A lot of miners definitely are losing money but there’s still miners that can make money,“ he maintains.