Bitcoin miners rallied strongly in the first two weeks of the month.
JPMorgan notes that U.S.-listed bitcoin miners’ share of the global hashrate hit a record 26.6%.
Every miner except Stronghold Digital outperformed bitcoin over this period, the bank said.
Bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks hit record highs in the first two weeks of this month as both pure-play and high performance computing (HPC) miners gained, JPMorgan said in a research report on Tuesday.
“U.S.-listed miners’ share of the global hashrate reached a record 26.6%,” analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote, adding that this represented an encouraging gain of 2.4% since the end of June and 5.6% since the bitcoin halving.
Hashrate refers to the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain and is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty.
The total market cap of the 14 bitcoin miners listed in the U.S. that the bank tracks rose 29% since the end of June and now trade at “2.6 times their proportional share of the four-year block reward, the highest level on record,” they wrote.
This seems to suggest that the market thinks the artificial intelligence and HPC opportunity could offer alternative and more accretive use cases for bitcoin mining sites, the report said.
The network hashrate increased 1% since June but is still about 60 exahashes per second (EH/s) below pre-halving levels, the bank noted.
Miners listed in the U.S. added a total 17 EH/s of capacity in June, to the highest level on record, the bank said. Gains were led by Riot Platforms (RIOT), Bitfarms (BITF) and CleanSpark (CLSK).
The bank notes that every miner except Stronghold Digital (SDIG), which dropped 8%, outperformed bitcoin in this period. Cipher Mining (CIFR) led advancers with a 44% gain.
Broker Bernstein expressed similar positive sentiment about the AI/HPC opportunity in a report last week. It said recent AI deals including Core Scientific’s (CORZ) 12-year agreement with CoreWeave and Coatue Management’s $150 million investment in HUT 8 (HUT) have become key catalysts for the sector.