U.S.-Listed Bitcoin Miners Hit Record 29% of Network Hashrate in October: JPMorgan

JPMorgan said the combined hashrate of the publicly listed bitcoin mining stocks it tracks now accounts for a record 28.9% of the network hashrate.

The bank noted that the network hashrate has risen 4% this month, while mining profitability inched higher.

Mining stocks may offer an attractive trading opportunity heading into the U.S. election, the report said.

The blended hashrate of the fourteen U.S.-listed bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks that JPMorgan tracks now accounts for a record 28.9% of the network hashrate, the investment bank said in a research report Wednesday.

“The combined hashrate of the 14 U.S.-listed miners we track has increased ~70% year-to-date (80 EH/s) to 194 EH/s, versus a 33% increase in the network hashrate, and today accounts for a record ~28.9% of the global network hashrate,” analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote.

This is an almost 8% increase since the bitcoin halving event earlier this year, and reflects the efficiency and financing advantages of some of the publicly listed miners, the bank said.

JPMorgan noted that the network hashrate has increased 4% so far this month to an average of 672 EH/s. Hashrate refers to the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain. The hashprice, a measure of daily mining profitability, has increased less than 1% since the end of September.

The total market cap of the miners that the bank covers has risen 7% since the end of September, and now trades on 1.9 times their share of the four-year block reward, the lowest level since May, and could offer a potential “attractive entry point heading into the election.”

The bank noted that mining stocks rallied in the first two weeks of the month as bitcoin gained and companies with high performance computing (HPC) exposure continued to see interest in deals from hyperscalers. Greenidge Generation (GREE) was the outperformer, with a 29% gain, and Stronghold (SDIG) underperformed the sector with a 17% slump.

Rival Wall Street bank Jefferies warned that October could be a harder month for the miners, in a research report Sunday.

Read more: Bitcoin Mining Profitability Fell in September, Jefferies Says