Bitcoin mining economy deteriorates: Hashrate hits new high but coin price drops

According to a report by The Miner Mag, the Bitcoin mining industry is facing profitability pressures. In October, the network hash rate climbed to a record 1.16 ZH/s, but the price of Bitcoin fell to around $81,000, causing the hashprice to drop below $35/PH/s, lower than the median of $45/PH/s for listed mining companies, with some miners nearing breakeven.

The payback period for mining machines has extended to over 1,200 days, and financing costs continue to rise. Although mining companies are accelerating their shift towards AI and high-performance computing (HPC), the related revenues still cannot compensate for the significant decline in Bitcoin mining income.

However, after JPMorgan raised the target prices for CleanSpark, Cipher Mining, and IREN, the stock prices of the top ten listed mining companies all rose on Monday. IREN signed a five-year, $9.7 billion GPU cloud services agreement with Microsoft in November.