The market cap of top publicly-traded Bitcoin miners soared last month, according to JP Morgan analysts in a note Tuesday, as some of the industry’s largest companies expanded into high-powered computing.
The analysts wrote that the aggregate market cap of the 13 U.S.-listed miners hit a record high of over $39 billion in August.
The bank tracks miners Hut 8, Core Scientific, TeraWulf, IREN, and Riot, which all trade on stock exchanges.
Mining the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value has grown increasingly difficult and expensive. The process has also generated smaller rewards since last year’s halving cut the Bitcoin earned from 6.250 to 3.125. These trends have hurt profitability, even as Bitcoin’s price has risen, prompting miners to look for new revenue sources.
Miners have often had to sell coins or branch into different industries—like high-performance computing for artificial intelligence—to cover operational costs.
But branching out into AI data centers is difficult, requiring more complex heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems than those for Bitcoin mining, experts have told Decrypt.
Still, some miners have already announced initiatives to convert facilities with Hut 8 last month revealing plans to develop 1.53 gigawatts of new capacity across four U.S. sites.
The new sites will provide energy for non-mining purposes, the company said.
Bitcoin was recently trading at $111,285, according to cryptocurrency markets data provider CoinGecko, after rising 2% over the past 24 hours. BTC is down more than 10% after reaching an all-time high of $124,285 last month.
JP Morgan analysts noted in the Tuesday report noted the declining profitability compared to July as the network hashrate reached record highs but the coin slumped to near its current levels.
