According to JPMorgan, Bitcoin miners with HPC exposure lagged behind in performance during the first two weeks of April.

JPMorgan: U.S. Bitcoin Miners See Mixed Results as HPC-Heavy Stocks Struggle

Bitcoin mining stocks exhibited varied performance in the first two weeks of April, with companies focused purely on Bitcoin mining, such as MARA Holdings (MARA) and CleanSpark (CLSK), outperforming those with significant exposure to high-performance computing (HPC), JPMorgan analysts noted in their latest report.

While MARA and CleanSpark managed to exceed Bitcoin’s (BTC) performance during this period, miners involved in HPC—like Bitdeer (BTDR), TeraWulf (WULF), IREN (IREN), and Riot Platforms (RIOT)—underperformed. HPC, which is utilized for technologies like artificial intelligence, likely added complexity to these mining operations, potentially limiting their growth.

The report highlighted that March had been a strong month for U.S.-listed miners, who increased their capacity by 15 exahashes per second (EH/s) and mined more Bitcoin. However, the first half of April showed a slowdown, as network hashrate growth outpaced operator expansion, combined with a decline in Bitcoin’s price.

“U.S. operators have been unable to keep pace with the growth of network hashrate, and a decline in Bitcoin’s price early in April pressured mining economics,” JPMorgan analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote.

JPMorgan’s analysis showed that U.S.-listed miners are now trading at around 1.2 times their proportional share of the four-year block reward opportunity, the lowest in over two years.

For the first two weeks of April, miners earned an average of $41,500 per EH/s per day, a 12% decrease from March. The network hashrate also grew by 85 EH/s in April, reaching an average of 900 EH/s. This increase in hashrate signals heightened competition and greater mining difficulty.

As a result, the total market capitalization of the 13 U.S.-listed Bitcoin miners tracked by JPMorgan declined by 2%, reaching $16.9 billion in April.