North American miners have published their bitcoin harvests for the month of August. Marathon is in the lead, closely followed by Core Scientific and Riot.
Marathon
With an operational hashrate of 19.1 EH/s, Marathon crushes the competition, which is not to decentralize the network. That said, using your own pool compensates a little, especially when you know that only two pools take 50% of the hashrate (the Chinese Antpool and Foundry USA).
Of the 1072 bitcoins mined, 322 were able to be added to its reserve which reached a whopping 13,286 BTC. That’s the equivalent of $344 million. That’s more than Tesla, but less than Microstrategy and its 152,800 bitcoins…
Marathon has now reached its cruising speed seven months before the halving and no longer needs to sell its entire production to cover its energy and operational costs.
Hut8
The Canadian has the second largest reserve of bitcoins (9255 BTC). 103 BTC were mined in August. None were sold.
With around 40 BTC mined per EH/s, the miner has modest facilities representing 2.6 EH/s. The reason being that Hut8 mined Ethereum a lot (to resell them for BTC) before its move to PoS.
Things will soon change thanks to its merger with US Bitcoin Corp. This private miner manages a park of more than 31 EH/sincluding 5 EH/s of its own.
We must also highlight the setbacks linked to last winter. Repair efforts at the Alberta site continued throughout August. More than 2,250 hashboards have been repaired, but 75% of miners remain out of service.
Riot
The Texan’s fleet represents 10.7 EH/s, which allowed it to mine 333 bitcoins. Only 33 BTC could be set aside. His war chest, however, reached 7,309 BTC.
The harvest was poor due to very high summer temperatures. Riot cut power to relieve Texas’ power grid. The result was a nearly 20% month-over-month drop in production.
However, the miner benefits from load-shedding agreements with the local energy company ERCOT. The shortfall in BTC is therefore compensated by juicy electricity credits equivalent to $31.7 million for the month of August alone. This represents the equivalent of 738 BTC! Or a theoretical result of 100 BTC per EH/s. No miner has done better.
Riot is also repairing damage caused by the winter storm. If all goes well, 12.5 EH/s should be reached this fall.
The miner has also ordered new generation ASICs for its Corsicana installation (water cooling). After the full deployment of the 7.6 EH/s ordered from MicroBT, Riot is on track to generate 20 EH/s from next summer.
HIVE, Core Scientific, Bitdeer
Hive (4 EH/s) sold all 274 BTC mined last month. However, its reserves remain solid, at 2032 bitcoins. That’s the equivalent of $52 million.
Core Scientific cannot say the same. The miner on the verge of bankruptcy once again sold all 965 BTC produced last month. He holds 0 BTC in reserve. Only a bull run could give some air to this giant which still generates 15.1 EH/s.
Same price for Bitdeer who had to part with the 383 BTC gleaned via his 8 EH/s. However, these sales are not used to pay off debts, but to develop its operations. The Singaporean shows the strongest increase in its production month-on-month (+74%) and year-on-year (+124%). And particularly in Bhutan where the government adopts a strategy similar to that of El Salvador.
Bitfarms, Cleanspark, Terawulf
TeraWulf produced 330 bitcoins, with its 4.7 EH/s mainly powered by the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The miner enjoys the cheapest electricity in North America. Mining a bitcoin costs him $10,247 in electricity. Its other Lake Mariner site is expected to house around 43 MW more by the end of 2023 which will power the latest generation S19j XP antminers.
CleanSpark just reached 9.0 EH/s (~88,200 ASIC), which allowed it to produce 659 bitcoins. Only 43 BTC were sold at an average price of $28,200. Which gives us a harvest of 616 additional bitcoins. His stack now stands at 1,677 bitcoins. At this rate, CleanSpark will be able to count approximately 6,000 BTC by the halving. A minor to follow closely.
Bitfarms and its 5.6 EH/s made it possible to mine 383 bitcoins, 60 of which reinforced its treasury by 654 bitcoins. The miner managed to get rid of all his debts. The goal is to be able to quickly mobilize capital if miners are crushed by halving.
Here is a summary table produced by Anthony Power:
August was a difficult month, as is often the case in summer for North American miners. Mining difficulty rose by another 6% while the price of bitcoin fell by 11%, which weighed down profitability compared to the previous month. And the halving is fast approaching…
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