Since the beginning of 2024, publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have collectively spent more than $3.6 billion on property, plant, and equipment (PP&E).
This includes money spent on mining hardware, data center upgrades, and other infrastructure needed to maintain and expand their operations.
Record Spending Incoming
A November 28 newsletter from TheMinerMag revealed that mining companies’ investments in PP&E between July and September 2024 were the highest since Q1 2022 when they forked out a record $1.246 billion.
In Q3 2024, the firms paid out $1.226 billion, only $20 million less than the Q1 2022 numbers. CleanSpark has yet to release its financial report for that period, and analysts feel that adding the Nevada-based miner’s outlay could allow the industry to set a new record for net PP&E expenditure in a single quarter.
The BTC miners have invested about $3.49 billion in equipment and upgrades this year, including $1.18 billion between January and March and $1.07 billion between April and June, in addition to the Q3 figure. This is already nearly $900 million more than the sector’s outlay in the entirety of 2022.
Hardware Purchases Dominate Spending
The uptick in investment following a subdued 2023, when the companies put about $1.3 billion into PP&E, coincides with the Bitcoin network’s hashrate going up to nearly 790 exahashes per second (EH/s).
Furthermore, the cryptocurrency’s mining difficulty also hit a new all-time high of 101.6 T on November 5, with experts predicting it will probably go up by at least another 2% in the coming days.
It means that mining operations will have to focus on efficiency and scale to stay competitive and profitable. As such, most of the PP&E money invested in the last year went towards upgrading and expanding mining hardware.
Preorder data tracked by TheMinerMag between July 2023 and March 2024 shows the firms committed more than $2 billion to buying the latest BTC mining machines.
Deliveries were expected to start streaming in by September 2024, with China-based Bitmain securing most of the deals. However, delays in shipping the company’s Antminer ASIC devices to U.S.-based BTC miners have sparked speculation about potential links to ongoing geopolitical issues. This includes a reported investigation into possible sanctions violations by Sophgo, a Chinese chip maker associated with Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan.
If a connection were established, it could have serious consequences for the multi-billion dollar BTC mining sector, especially at a time when the cryptocurrency is threatening to breach the $100,000 milestone.
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