Controlling 17% of BTC hash rate: Report on publicly listed mining firms

The Cointelegraph Research Terminal, the leading provider of premium databases and institutional-grade research on blockchain and digital assets, has added a new report to its expanding library. The latest paper looks at a particular group of players in the Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry. Published by crypto consulting firm Crypto Oxygen, the report highlights the current landscape of publicly listed crypto mining companies that control approximately 17% of the total hash rate of the entire Bitcoin network. 

The crypto mining industry is a quickly growing and evolving sector. In January this year, a United States-based company Core Scientific went public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, making it the largest publicly traded crypto mining company in revenue and hash rate. Core Scientific’s hash rate leads all public companies with 8.3 exahashes per second (Eh/s), and it mined 5,769 BTC in 2021, generating about $545 million in revenue. Coming in second and third in terms of revenue are Riot Blockchain and Hive Blockchain Technologies, earning $215 million and $195 million, respectively.

Strategic, operational and financial breakdown

Hash rate and revenue are just a few ways to distinguish between companies, but they don’t paint the whole picture since some firms have revenue models separate from their core mining activity. The report dissects such key stats and offers a more detailed comparison, encompassing each company’s strategic, operational and financial performance.

Download the full report, complete with charts and infographics from the Cointelegraph Research Terminal

For instance, the report compares each company’s operations via the current hash rate per U.S. dollar invested. This way, it becomes easier to see which company offers more investment value to investors, which, in this metric’s case, is Stronghold Digital Mining with 46.56 gigahashes per second (GH/s) to lead the pack.

Aside from this, the report also provides a quick snapshot of each company’s operations, including each one’s operational key performance indicators (KPIs,) business model, data center locations, BTC holdings and other pertinent information.

Specifically, major players like Marathon have lean setups and rely entirely on being hosted by external providers, while others like Stronghold own assets along with the full value chain, including the electrical infrastructure.

Rather than just depending solely on financial reports and public statements, Crypto Oxygen has also further conducted a survey to include direct feedback from the analyzed companies in its research.

Sustainability

A major concern of Bitcoin mining, in general, pertains to Environment, Social and Governance, or ESG. Sustainability has always been a central talking point concerning the crypto mining industry, and publicly listed companies are particularly subject to increased scrutiny. Yet, there seems to be a focus among the companies in the report on limiting the carbon footprint of their operations, despite the differences in approaches.

Out of the 12 companies, eight are already carbon neutral or environmentally beneficial operations. Bitfarms, Hive, Iris Energy and Argo are four companies that rely exclusively on renewable energy sources. Northern Data, Core Scientific and Greenidge Generation use offset credits to reduce their carbon footprint. Marathon Digital Holdings and Hut 8 Mining are also already using carbon offset credits and target to be carbon neutral by the end of 2022, while 67% of Bit Digital’s energy source is from renewables.

Indirect exposure

Investing in public crypto mining firms offers investors exposure in the crypto space, albeit not as direct as holding Bitcoin. The correlation between the mining companies’ stock prices to the price of BTC is underscored in the report, and the recent drop in the price of BTC exhibits that. It also shows that more significant BTC holdings tend to be a key driver in the downturn.

Yet, the mining firms’ stock prices have declined disproportionately. What the 46-page report delivers is an analysis of each public mining firm’s performance and presents a detailed comparison of each one to help bring more clarity to the players involved in the developing space and the industry in general. For those interested in reading the full report, download it by visiting Cointelegraph Research Terminal.

This article is for information purposes only and represents neither investment advice nor an investment analysis or an invitation to buy or sell financial instruments. Specifically, the document does not serve as a substitute for individual investment or other advice.