HPC-exposed Bitcoin Miners Perform Worst in First Two Weeks of April: JPMorgan

A report from JPMorgan (JPM) released on Wednesday noted that the performance of Bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks was mixed in the first two weeks of April, with operators focused solely on mining outperforming those focused on high-performance computing (HPC).

Only MARA Holdings (MARA) and CleanSpark (CLSK) managed to outperform the largest cryptocurrency during this period, while miners using HPC for applications such as AI, including Bitdeer (BTDR), TeraWulf (WULF), IREN (IREN), and Riot Platforms (RIOT), performed worse.

The bank noted that March was a good month for American miners. They increased their capacity by 15 exahashes per second and mined more tokens. The first two weeks of April were not as favorable.

“The growth of the network hash rate outpaced the increase in the number of US operators, and the average price of Bitcoin fell in the first half of April, which had a negative impact on the mining economics,” analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pierce wrote.

The bank's calculations show that shares of US miners are currently trading at around 1.2 times their proportionate share of the four-year block reward, the lowest in two years.

The report notes that miners earned approximately $41,500 in daily block rewards per EH/s in the first two weeks of the month, down 12% from March.

The bank also noted that the network hashrate has increased by 85 EH/s since the beginning of the month, reaching an average of 900 EH/s. Hashrate represents the total computing power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain, and is an indicator of the competitive environment in the industry and the difficulty of mining.

The total market capitalization of the 13 U.S.-listed Bitcoin miners tracked by the bank fell 2% in April to $16.9 billion.

Read more: Bitcoin mining profitability fell 7.4% in March as prices and transaction fees fell: Jefferies

Source: cryptonews.net