Bitcoin Network Hashrate Took Breather in First Two Weeks of October: JPMorgan

The Bitcoin network hashrate declined modestly in the first two weeks of October, dropping 5 exahashes per second (EH/s) to an average of 1,030 EH/s, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a report Thursday.

The pullback in the hashrate follows the successive record highs seen in August and September.

U.S.-listed miners that the bank tracks now account for around 38% of the global network.

The hashrate refers to the total combined computational power used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain, and is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty.

“HPC enthusiasm continued over the first two weeks of October, as the 14 bitcoin miners and data center operators we follow reached a combined market cap of $79 billion,” analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote.

Miners earned around $52,500 in daily block reward revenue per EH/s, an increase of 6% from the end of September, the report said, but the hashprice, a measure of daily mining profitability, fell 7%.

The total market cap of the 14 U.S.-listed bitcoin miners that the bank covers rose 41% from the end of last month to a record $79 billion. All these companies outperformed BTC over the period.

Bitfarms (BITF) outperformed with a 129% gain, and Cango (CANG) underperformed the group with a 3% rise, the report added.

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