coindesk.com
Bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks tracked by JPMorgan have enjoyed a strong start to the year, with 12 of the 14 companies outperforming the world's largest cryptocurrency in the first two weeks, the Wall Street bank said in a research report Thursday.
The network hashrate has risen 2% month-to-date to an average of 793 exahashes per second (EH/s) and is 51% higher than a year ago, the report said.
The 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 hashprice, a measure of daily mining profitability, has dropped less than 1% since the end of December, the bank noted, as "hashrate growth outpaced BTC price movement."
"Miners earned ~$54,900 in daily block reward revenue per EH/s over the first two weeks of January," analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote, which was 2% less than last month.
The combined hashrate of the 14 U.S.-listed miners in the bank's coverage has more than doubled in the last 12 months and now accounts for roughly 30% of the global network.
The total market cap of the mining stocks that the bank tracks has increased 16%, or $4.5 billion, in the first two weeks of the year. Riot Platforms (RIOT) outperformed, with a 32% gain, and Bitdeer underperformed, with a 4% decline.
Bitcoin has increased about 56% since the halving event in April, around 44% since the U.S. presidential election in November, and is up 134% year-on-year, the report said.
Read more: U.S.-Listed Bitcoin Miners Accounted for 25% of Global Network in December: Jefferies