A JPMorgan Chase and Co. analyst note on Monday pointed out that despite Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) prices hitting record highs in March, the performance of mining stocks has been more volatile.
What Happened: JPMorgan analyst Reginald Smith pointed out that Bitcoin's price soared to an average daily price of approximately $67,600 in March.
This 37% increase from February's average came with a notable increase in the network's hash rate—a measure of the computational power per second used when mining and processing Bitcoin transactions—to 600 Exahashes per second (EH/s), up 23 EH/s from February and 80% year-over-year, indicating increased competition.
Mining profitability improved, with miners earning an average of 100,400 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue, the highest since August 2022, as bitcoin price appreciation outpaced hash rate growth.
However, as the Bitcoin halving event approaches, stock performance is expected to be volatile in April.
The aggregate market cap of the 14 bitcoin miners was $20 billion as of March 31, up 3% for the month.
Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ:MARA) had the highest market cap at $6 billion, followed by CleanSpark (NASDAQ:CLSK) at $4.2 billion. Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) and Wulf Mining (NASDAQ:WULF) had the best stock performance in March, while Bitfarms (NASDAQ:BITF) had the worst.
Only CleanSpark has outperformed Bitcoin's year-to-date return.
Marathon had the highest reported hashrate at 28.7 EH/s, followed by CleanSpark at 18.9 EH/s. The miners' aggregate market cap was 21% of the nominal value of remaining Bitcoin and 42% of the four-year rolling block reward revenue opportunity.
CleanSpark and Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT) traded at the highest EV-to-current hash rate multiples, while Iris Energy (NASDAQ:IREN) was among the cheapest on that metric.
What's Next: These developments will be a topic of keen interest at the Benzinga's Future of Digital Assets event, where industry experts will delve into the dynamics of cryptocurrency investments, mining profitability, and the broader implications of the Bitcoin halving for the future of digital assets.
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.