Bitcoin Miners Face Economic Storm in February

Bitcoin mining economics weakened in February, according to a report by JPMorgan. The total market capitalization of the 14 publicly-listed U.S. miners tracked by the bank dropped by 22% during the month, as the price of bitcoin (BTC) declined and mining profitability came under pressure.

The decline in mining economics was partly attributed to the announcement of DeepSeek artificial intelligence (AI) and concerns about near-term demand for data center capacity. Revenue and profitability for bitcoin miners fell in February, with average daily block reward revenue per EH/s declining by 5% to $54,300. Gross profit per EH/s also fell by 9% to $29,500.

The average network hashrate rose by 3% to 810 EH/s in February, while mining difficulty increased by 2% from January. Network difficulty is now 28% higher than before the halving event in April 2021. Among the listed miners, Core Scientific (CORZ) was the best performer with a 9% drop, while Greenidge Generation underperformed with a 36% decline for the month.