Bitcoin (BTC) miners’ daily revenue and gross profits rose for the second consecutive month in December, reaching the highest levels since April, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Monday.
Mining profitability increased as the rally in the world’s largest cryptocurrency continued to outpace network hashrate growth, the bank noted.
JPMorgan estimated that bitcoin miners earned an average of $57,100 per exahash per second (EH/s) in daily block reward revenue last month, up 10% from November.
Still, “daily revenue and gross profit per EH/s remain 43% and 52% below pre-halving levels, respectively,” wrote analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce.
The network’s hashrate grew 6% in December to an average of 779 EH/s, according to the report. Hashrate refers to the total combined computing power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain.
Mining difficulty increased 7% from the previous month and is now 27% higher than before the reward halving event in April, the bank said. The hashrate increased by 54% in 2024, slower than the 103% increase in 2023.
The total market capitalization of the 14 publicly traded bitcoin miners that the bank tracks decreased 23% to $28 billion in December. The figure increased 52% in November.
TeraWulf (WULF) was the only miner to outperform Bitcoin last year, with a 136% gain, according to the report. Bitcoin is up around 120%.
Read more: Bitcoin miners expected to be profitable in December, says Jefferies
