The market cap of Bitcoin miners soared in September as firms in the space benefited from pivots to high-powered computing that feeds the burgeoning artificial intelligence sector, according to a report from JP Morgan.
Analysts at the banking giant highlighted the surge in a Wednesday report, noting that the combined value of the 14 top publicly traded miners it tracks passed $50 billion for the first time ever.
Top mining stocks this week have jumped in value with the price of the leading cryptocurrency, too, with Mara, Riot, and CleanSpark all up significantly over the week—and the past month. Those firms retreated slightly on Wednesday.
“Growth in aggregate market cap outpaced bitcoin price appreciation for the sixth consecutive month, as operators continue to diversify their businesses away from bitcoin mining towards HPC,” the report read.
The surge in market cap comes as miners look to high-powered computing to increase profits. Google last month announced it was backstopping a deal between AI compute company Fluidstack and Bitcoin miner Cipher, giving Google the right to buy a 5.4% stake in Cipher.
Bitcoin miners—typically industrial operations consisting of warehouses full of computers that work to secure the network—are rewarded in newly minted coins for processing blocks on the decentralized payment network.
But when the price of the biggest cryptocurrency drops, businesses may struggle to cover their costs.
Experts have told Decrypt that while both Bitcoin mining and running a data center to power AI businesses may appear similar, the pivot from crypto to HPC isn’t always easy and requires different expertise.
HIVE Digital’s stock is up nearly 9% over the past week, and has surged by 41% over the past month. Nasdaq-listed MARA has jumped by 8% this week and nearly 16% over a 30-day period.
CleanSpark, meanwhile, has spiked more over the past month, with its share price up over 51% over that period. This week, CLSK has risen by 4%.
Bitcoin was recently trading above $117,615, a nearly 3% 24-hour rise. It dropped below $107,000 per coin at the start of September, CoinGecko data shows.
