According to CoinDesk, daily bitcoin mining revenue and gross profit experienced a decline in October for the fourth consecutive month, as reported by JPMorgan (JPM) in a recent research report. The bank highlighted that daily block reward gross profit reached its lowest point on recent record during this period. Additionally, mining difficulty hit an all-time high in October, further impacting profitability.
JPMorgan estimated that bitcoin miners earned an average of $41,800 per exahash per second (EH/s) of hashrate in daily block reward revenue, which is a 1% decrease from September. The hashrate, representing the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain, serves as a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty. The bank also noted a 2% drop in daily block reward gross profit in October, marking the lowest level on recent record.
Despite the overall decline, there was a positive development as transaction fees spiked to as high as 60% of the block reward towards the end of the month, providing some relief in hashprice, which measures mining company daily revenue. The monthly average hashrate for the Bitcoin network surged to a record high of 702 EH/s in October, reflecting a significant 9% increase from the previous month. The seven-day moving average network hashrate at the end of the month stood at 748 EH/s, up 18% from the end of September and 62% year-on-year.
The total market capitalization of the 14 publicly listed miners tracked by JPMorgan rose by 14% to $23.9 billion, driven by companies with high-performance computing (HPC) exposure. This increase in market cap highlights the resilience of certain segments within the mining industry despite the overall decline in profitability.
