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The Bitcoin network hashrate, a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty, rose slightly in January, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Monday.
The monthly average network hashrate rose 1% to 785 exahashes per second (EH/s), the bank noted, while mining difficulty fell 2% month-on-month.
The month-end, weekly moving average hashrate was 781 EH/s, a 2% decline from the end of December, the report said.
“This is relatively uncommon, and a modest tailwind for bitcoin (BTC) mining economics,” analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote, adding that network difficulty remains 25% higher than before the halving event last April.
According to a CoinDesk report from Tuesday, Bitcoin’s 7-day moving average hashrate hit an all-time high of 833 exahashes per second (EH/s).
Mining profitability also inched higher in January. The bank estimated that miners earned an average of $57,200 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue, an increase of less than 1% from December.
The total market cap of the bitcoin miners that the bank tracks rose 5% from the month previous.
Cipher Mining (CIFR) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) outperformed, gaining 23% and 16% respectively, after announcing high performance computing (HPC) related news.
TeraWulf (WULF) underperformed in January, with the shares dropping 16%.
Read more: Bitcoin Miners Bitdeer, CleanSpark, Core Scientific Initiated at Outperform by KBW
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