Crypto Miners Face Revenue Decline Amid Increased Network Difficulty

Publicly traded crypto miners experienced a third consecutive month of declining daily revenue in September, coinciding with a rise in network difficulty.

Bitcoin Network Performance

According to a report from JPMorgan, the Bitcoin network’s hash rate rose to 643 EH/s in September, a 2% increase from August. However, miners' earnings per EH/s fell by 6% month-over-month to $42,100. Despite Bitcoin gaining about 7% in value in September, its market conditions remained challenging.

The total market capitalization of 14 U.S.-listed bitcoin miners tracked by JPMorgan increased by 4% to $21 billion.

Bitcoin Miner Production Highlights for September

Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA)

• Mined 705 BTC (6% increase from August)
• Bitcoin holdings: 26,842 BTC
• CEO Fred Thiel emphasized strong operations and significant growth in hash rate.

Riot Platforms (RIOT)

• Mined 412 BTC (28% increase from August)
• Bitcoin holdings: 10,427 BTC
• CEO Jason Les attributed growth to operational improvements and recent infrastructure completion.

CleanSpark (CLSK)

• Mined 493 BTC
• Total holdings: 8,049 BTC
• CEO Zach Bradford noted a 145% year-over-year increase in stock price.

Bitfarms (BITF)

• Mined 217 BTC (7% decrease from August)
• Sold 173 BTC and added 44 BTC to total holdings of 1,147 BTC.

TeraWulf (WULF)

• Mined 176 BTC at an average of 8.2 EH/s
• Focused on maximizing profitability through demand response events.

Core Scientific (CORZ)

• Mined 345 BTC (slight decrease from August)
• Sold 370 BTC.

Cipher Mining

• Mined 155 BTC but sold 923 BTC.

Hut 8 (HUT)

• Mined 85 BTC, total holdings 9,106 BTC
• Formed a partnership with Bitmain Technologies and launched a new service.

Market Sentiment and Future Perspectives

Despite declining revenues, Hut 8’s stock rose by 21%, indicating cautious optimism in the sector. Macquarie began recommending several miners, highlighting a shift from traditional crypto operations to AI and high-performance computing models, influenced by analysts noting that AI-focused miners are outperforming rivals.

AI-focused operations are expanding their data center infrastructure, presenting additional opportunities in the rapidly growing AI sector.