Bitcoin News Today: IREN Mines More Bitcoin Than MARA in July Drives 11.4 Stock Surge

IREN Ltd. surged 11.4% on Wednesday after disclosing that it mined more Bitcoin than MARA Holdings in July, despite deploying a smaller hashrate. The miner reported revenue of $86 million for the month, mining 728 BTC, compared to MARA’s 703 BTC with a hashrate of 58.9 exahashes per second (EH/s), versus IREN’s 45.4 EH/s average. The results highlight IREN’s efficiency and operational resilience amid rising mining difficulty, which has increased energy consumption and pressured profitability for many miners [1].

The stock closed at $18.32, with IREN’s market cap reaching $4.11 billion, placing it second among publicly traded Bitcoin miners, behind only MARA. Most of its peer companies saw gains between 1% and 5% on the same day [1].

IREN’s performance contrasts with MARA’s July figures, which showed a dip from June despite strong Q2 results that included a 64% year-on-year revenue jump to $238 million. MARA also holds the second-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, with 50,000 BTC [1].

IREN’s July revenue included $2.3 million from its artificial intelligence cloud business, a key component of the company’s strategy to diversify beyond Bitcoin mining. The firm purchased 2,400 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs in July, with the first batch of 256 units already delivered. Co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts emphasized the adaptability of IREN’s infrastructure, stating that running Bitcoin mining and AI operations in parallel positions the company to capture emerging market opportunities [1].

This marks a significant turnaround for IREN. Just 12 months earlier, short-seller Culper Research labeled the company “wildly overvalued,” comparing its AI ambitions to attempting to win the Monaco Grand Prix with a Toyota Prius. IREN shares had fallen as low as $5.59 in April but have since surged over 227% [1].

The results underscore IREN’s strategic shift and operational efficiency in a competitive and energy-intensive industry. As Bitcoin mining becomes increasingly capital and energy-intensive, firms that can optimize infrastructure while diversifying into adjacent technologies like AI may gain a stronger foothold in the market [1].

Source: [1] IREN Mines More Bitcoin Than MARA in July – Cointelegraph (https://cointelegraph.com/news/iren-mines-more-bitcoin-mara-holdings-in-july)