According to a report released Wednesday by JPMorgan, the total market capitalization of the 14 U.S.-listed mining companies it monitors surpassed $50 billion last month.
The market value of these publicly traded mining stocks witnessed a significant surge in September, climbing by 43% compared to the previous month, reaching $56 billion, the financial institution stated.
Several key developments fueled this increase, including Cipher Mining’s (CIFR) high-performance computing (HPC) data center agreement with Fluidstack, and IREN’s (IREN) expansion of its AI cloud services.
Concurrently, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate saw growth. The monthly average hashrate “increased approximately 82 EH/s (+9%) month-over-month, averaging 1,031 EH/s in September,” according to analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce.
The hashrate represents the aggregate computational power employed for mining and validating transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain.
However, mining profitability experienced a decrease for the second consecutive month as the hashrate went above 1000 EH/s. The analysts at the bank estimated that miners “earned an average of $49,700 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue during September, a 10% decrease from August.” The daily block reward gross profit also decreased 17% from the month before.
Bitfarms (BITF) showed the best performance within the group with a 110% increase, while Cango (CANG) showed the worst performance with an 11% decline.
According to the report, Twelve of the fourteen mining companies tracked by the bank exceeded Bitcoin’s performance in September.
Learn More: Cipher Latest Bitcoin Miner to Embrace AI; Price Target Increased to $16: Canaccord