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JPMorgan: US-listed bitcoin miners hit $22.8 billion market cap amid rising hashrate share, AI opportunities

The BlockThe Block2024/06/17 13:04
By:James Hunt

U.S.-listed bitcoin miners have reached a record market cap of $22.8 billion, according to analysts at JPMorgan.U.S. mining stocks have rallied in the first half of June amid a rising share of network hashrate and AI data center diversification opportunities.

U.S.-listed bitcoin miners have reached a record market capitalization of $22.8 billion as of June 15, according to JPMorgan analysts.

The 14 U.S. listed stocks have rallied in the first half of June, led by Core Scientific, TeraWulf and IREN, with 117%, 80% and 70% gains, respectively, JPMorgan analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote in a Monday report to clients.

Argo Blockchain is the only miner that has fallen in price in June. It's down 7% and underperformed a 3% drop in the price of bitcoin .

Marathon Digital is currently the largest U.S.-listed bitcoin miner with a $5.3 billion market cap, followed by CleanSpark and Riot Platforms at $4 billion and $3 billion, respectively.

The aggregate market cap for the sector has subsequently gained 24% — some $4.4 billion — since the end of May, as investors reacted to an agreement between Core Scientific and CoreWeave, the analysts said.

U.S.-listed bitcoin miner market cap. Image: JPMorgan.

AI cloud provider CoreWeave offered to acquire bitcoin miner Core Scientific for $1.6 billion earlier this month — a 55% premium above its market price, though the bid was rejected. That followed a 12-year, $3.5 billion partnership deal between the two firms, enabling CoreWeave to host its AI-related services in Core Scientific’s data centers.

Other mining firms, such as Hut 8 and IREN, have also pursued similar AI diversification initiatives in recent months, seeking to expand their revenues following April’s bitcoin halving , which cut miners' block subsidy rewards by 50% — reducing the average new daily supply of bitcoin from 900 to 450.

US-listed bitcoin miners' share of network hashrate increases

Another factor in their market cap rise is an increased share of network hashrate for U.S. bitcoin miners, the analysts suggested.

Outside of an initial boost in transaction fee rewards stemming from the hype surrounding Runes , Bitcoin BTC -1.50% ’s network hashrate has declined around 5% since the halving, with the seven-day moving average of daily hashrate falling from 629.44 EH/s to 598.08 EH/s, according to The Block’s data dashboard .

However, the relative hashrate for the U.S.-listed bitcoin miners has continued to increase, reaching a 23.8% market share — up from 22.9% in May and 21% in April — as more inefficient operations exit the network post-halving.

“We estimate U.S.-listed miners, which account for ~24% of the network hashrate, currently trade at ~2.25 times their proportional share of the four-year block reward opportunity, versus an average of 1.5x since January 2022, the highest point since February 2024 (2.4x),” the analysts added, estimating around 650,000 BTC will be mined over the next four years.

U.S.-listed bitcoin miner hashrate share. Image: JPMorgan.

Despite the general hashrate decline, Bitcoin’s hashprice, a measure of how much a miner can expect to earn from a specific quantity of hashrate, is still around 15% below the bear market lows of December 2022 and 45% below pre-halving levels, which is “unsustainable,” according to the analysts.

“All else equal, we expect hashprice to increase in the coming weeks as the network hashrate declines,” they said.

JPMorgan may do business with companies covered in its research reports.


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Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.

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