Майнинг биткоина: спад прибыльности на фоне бурного роста AI-инвестиций Translation: Bitcoin Mining: Profitability Decline Amidst Surging AI Investments

In September, the profitability of mining the leading cryptocurrency plummeted by over 7%, with the daily earnings per EH/s of hash rate dropping from $56,000 to $52,000. This information comes from a report by Jefferies, cited by CoinDesk.

Experts from the investment bank identified two main factors contributing to the decline in mining profitability: a 2% drop in Bitcoin’s price over the month and a collective increase in the network’s computing power by approximately 9%.

At the beginning of Q4, there was a slight decrease in hash rate, leading to reduced competition. However, a sharp market correction intensified the pressure on mining economics, experts noted.

This assessment is supported by data from Hashrate Index, which shows that following a major market correction on October 11, the hash price has consistently remained below $49 per PH/s per day. The lowest recorded values for this metric earlier this year were in April, when Bitcoin’s price fell below $90,000.

Publicly traded mining companies in the United States generated 3,401 BTC in September, down from 3,576 the previous month.

MARA Holdings led the pack by mining 736 BTC, followed by CleanSpark with 629 BTC. These two firms also boasted the highest deployed hash rates of 60.4 EH/s and 50 EH/s, respectively.

Despite the drop in mining profitability, miner stocks have seen a rapid increase. According to a report by TheMinerMag, the combined market capitalization of the 15 largest American companies in the industry reached $90 billion by mid-October. Since September 15, Bitfarms’ shares surged by 162%, while Canaan’s shares grew by 149%, and CleanSpark’s shares by 125%. During the same period, Bitcoin’s value declined by 3.7%.

Experts attribute the stark contrast in trends to the «AI pivot» among cryptocurrency miners. These companies have leveraged their existing access to energy resources and established infrastructure during the boom in high-performance computing.

One of the largest deals in this realm was the $9 billion acquisition of mining center operator Core Scientific by AI hyperscaler CoreWeave in July.

In August, Google increased its stake in TeraWulf to 14% by boosting financial guarantees to $3.2 billion for a deal between the miner and AI cloud platform Fluidstack. In September, the company announced it would raise approximately $3 billion to construct data centers through a structure supported by the tech corporation.

The same month, Google assisted Fluidstack in securing a lease agreement with another cryptocurrency miner, Cipher Mining. The corporation guaranteed that the English startup would meet obligations amounting to $1.4 billion in exchange for a 5.4% stake in the miner.

IREN announced its expansion in AI Cloud, investing around $193 million in NVIDIA Blackwell B200 graphics processors in August. At that time, the company was part of a group of mining firms with a hash rate of at least 50 EH/s, along with MARA, CleanSpark, and Cango. TheMinerMag noted that among this quartet, only IREN began its expansion into AI.

On October 20, CleanSpark declared its transition from «pure mining» to high-performance computing (HPC).

The company appointed industry veteran Jeffrey Thomas as Vice President of AI-based data centers.

In a report on operational activities for September, Bitdeer announced plans to repurpose its mining facility in Norway for HPC services. The firm also plans to expand its existing AI capabilities in Southeast Asia and the United States.

In August, GoMining experts forecasted a wave of institutional investments in Bitcoin mining, driven by the boom in AI computing.