Even Top Wall Street Bitcoin Miners Cannot Stay Profitable Despite Soaring Hashrate

Three major publicly listed Bitcoin miners from Wall Street reported net losses in their third-quarter results, despite significant revenue growth and operational expansions amid volatile cryptocurrency market conditions.

Wall Street Bitcoin Miners Report Net Losses in Q3 Despite Revenue Growth

Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA), the largest public Bitcoin miner by market capitalization, posted a substantial net loss of $124.8 million in Q3 2024, despite generating revenue of $131.6 million. The company's operational expenses increased by $40 million during the quarter, overshadowing its 34.5% year-over-year revenue growth.

In October 2024, MARA secured a $200 million line of credit, collateralized by a portion of its cryptocurrency holdings. This move underscores the increasing adoption of cryptocurrency-backed financing among corporations.

TeraWulf Inc. (NASDAQ: WULF) reported a net loss of $22.7 million, widening from $19.1 million in the same period last year. While the company achieved a 42.8% revenue increase to $27.1 million, its Bitcoin production decreased by 43.4% to 555 BTC, primarily due to increased network difficulty and the Bitcoin halving event in April.

“Power cost per bitcoin self-mined increased year-over-year, to $30,448 per bitcoin in Q3 2024 from $9,322 per bitcoin in Q3 2023, due to an approximate doubling in network difficulty and the bitcoin reward halving in April 2024,” TeraWulf commented in a statement.

HIVE Digital Technologies (NASDAQ: HIVE) recorded a net loss before tax of $7.3 million, though this marked an improvement from the $22.9 million loss in the previous year. The company's revenue reached $22.6 million, with significant contributions from its diversified high-performance computing services.

“As Bitcoin reaches new all-time highs, HIVE is positioned to capitalize on the momentum for green energy and digital assets worldwide,” commented Frank Holmes, HIVE’s Executive Chairman. “With recent regulatory developments following the U.S. election, the environment for digital assets and Bitcoin mining is more favorable than ever.”

Hasrate Goes Up

Despite the losses, all three companies reported significant operational expansions. Marathon increased its hashrate to 40.2 EH/s, while TeraWulf doubled its capacity to 10.0 EH/s, and HIVE reached 5.6 EH/s.

“HIVE’s Bitcoin mining hashrate grew by 14%, from 4.9 EH/s in June 2024 to 5.6 EH/s in September 2024, supporting HIVE’s goal of reaching 12.5 EH/s by late 2025,” said HIVE.

In the meantime, another publicly listed Bitcoin miner from Wall Street, Hut 8, announced its plans to achieve 6& hashrate growth to 9.3 EH/s by 2025. To achieve this, it has purchased 31,145 BITMAIN Antminer S21+ units as part of its initial ASIC fleet upgrade.

“Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation) in the third quarter of 2024 increased 77.3% to $14.7 million compared to $8.3 million in the third quarter of 2023,” TeraWulf commented. It was “2023, primarily due to an approximate doubling in network difficulty and the bitcoin reward halving in April 2024, partially offset by a 62.0% increase in average operating hash rate and 117.3% increase in average value per bitcoin self-mined year-over-year.”

Although the biggest publicly listed miners reported higher production in Q3 and last month, the overall mining revenues were falling for fourth straight month. The daily block reward gross profit declined by 2%, reaching its lowest level in recent records. Miners earned an average of $41,800 per EH/s from daily block rewards, representing a 1% decrease compared to September.