Bitcoin mining was notably less profitable in August than July, the report said.
Jefferies said September could be another difficult month for the miners as bitcoin remains below $60K and the network hashrate continues to advance.
Mining economics may be moving in the wrong direction but operational efficiency is improving, the bank said.
Bitcoin (BTC) mining was much less profitable in August than July as the average bitcoin price fell over 4% and the average network hashrate rose about 2.7%, investment bank Jefferies said in a research report on Wednesday.
Miner’s average daily revenue per exahash fell by 11.8% from the month previous as a result, the report said.
“September is shaping up to be another difficult month as BTC remains below $60K and the network hashrate continues to climb,” analysts Jonathan Petersen and Joe Dickstein wrote. The Bitcoin hashrate is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty.
Jefferies notes that there were less days of extreme heat this summer, which meant better uptime for the largest miners. The bitcoin mined by Marathon Digital (MARA) last month implies roughly 88% uptime, compared to 75% in August last year.
For the ten largest bitcoin miners that the bank tracks, implied uptime last month was around 83% versus 76% a year ago and 79% in August 2022.
“While mining economics may be moving in the wrong direction, operational efficiency is improving,” the authors wrote.
U.S.-listed mining companies mined a lower share of new bitcoin in August than the month prior, the bank said, and were 19.9% of the total network as the “public players brought on new capacity faster than the network hashrate increased.”
Marathon mined the most tokens last month, with 673 bitcoin, the report noted. CleanSpark (CLSK) was second with 478 BTC.
Marathon’s installed hashrate remains the largest of the group, followed by Riot Platforms (RIOT), the report added.
Wall Street giant JPMorgan said mining profitability fell to all time lows in the first two weeks of August, the bank noted in a report last month.
