Compass Mining shared its Bitcoin Mining Industry Report for the past month along with key operational updates.
Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, surpassed $100,000 for the first time on Thursday 5 December, 2024, marking a significant milestone in the realm of digital assets and “even recognized by some of the largest skeptics.” the team at Compass Mining noted in their extensive report.
This surge in the BTC price was fueled by the nomination of pro-crypto Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission by President-elect Donald Trump.
As noted in the update from Compass Mining, the overall cryptocurrency market value has nearly doubled this year, “exceeding $3.8 trillion.” However, there has been a strong correction at the time of writing with the market now hovering just above the $3 trillion mark.
Industry professionals, including Mike Novogratz, CEO and Founder of Galaxy Digital (GLXY) are heralding this moment as a transformative shift in finance, with Bitcoin‘s ascendance creating “a new asset class and popularizing decentralized finance.”
However, it is still better to proceed with caution as even Novogratz has been known to be not very accurate when it comes to making BTC price predictions (once claiming that BTC would never drop below $5,000 but then COVID led to a massive global market crash back in 2020).
Going on to share key updates from the Bitcoin mining ecosystem, Compass Mining noted that on November 22, 2024, Bitdeer announced a private placement of “$360 million in 5.25% Convertible Senior Notes due 2029, targeting qualified institutional buyers.”
An additional $40 million was also “subsequently purchased by initial buyers, taking the total to $400 million.”
As explained in the update from Compass Mining, the notes, which will mature on Dec 1, 2029, feature a “semi-annual interest payment beginning June 1, 2025, and an initial conversion rate of 62.7126 Class A shares per $1,000 principal.”
The company anticipates net proceeds of “approximately $348.2 million for data center expansion, ASIC mining rig development, and general corporate purposes.”
Additionally, Bitdeer plans to engage in a “zero-strike call option transaction and is considering exchanges for existing 2029 notes.”
In November, the company mined “150 Bitcoin at an average daily rate of 5.0 Bitcoin, a reduction of 10.9% on the rate achieved in the previous month. The company has established a Hodl of 443 Bitcoin, valued at $43 million as at November 30, 2024.”
Compass Mining also mentioned that during the month of November, Bit Digital has been highlighting “significant developments in its GPU cloud revenue and high-performance computing (HPC) services.”
In its HPC data center, Bit Digital serviced 13 customers,” generating approximately USD $503.5k in colocation revenue.”
Compass Mining further noted that the company has also secured substantial contracts for GPU supply, including a deal “worth $5 million for 512 H200 GPUs over six months and another valued at $10.1 million for 576 H200 GPUs over twelve months.”
As of November 30, 2024, the firm operated 266 servers “equipped with 2,128 GPUs, generating approximately $4.3 million in GPU cloud revenue for the month.”
Bit Digital produced 44.9 Bitcoin during November “at an average daily rate of 1.5 Bitcoin, a reduction of 11.1% on the rate achieved during the previous month, although the active hash rate increased by 3.3% to approximately 2.51 EH/s.”
The firm’s treasury holdings reportedly included “813 Bitcoin and 27,563 Ethereum, valued at 180.1 million, as at November 30, 2024.”
Bit Digital also reported cash and cash equivalents of “$151.3 million, bringing their total liquidity to approximately $332.5 million.”
The company also had 21,568 Ethereum staked in native protocols, earning a blended “annual percentage yield of 3.4%, which resulted in approximately 59.9 Ethereum in staking rewards for the month, valued at $220,205.”=
The report from Compass Mining added that MARA had an extremely productive month, “topping literally every metric.”
In November, the company led the industry in productivity per hash rate, achieving “19.7 Bitcoin per EH/s, closely followed by Hut 8 (19.6), TeraWulf (19.5) and Hive Digital (19.4).”
From a YTD average performance, Hive Digital moved to the top of the rankings by the “smallest of margins, in terms of production per EH/s, demonstrating its resilience and consistent performance.”
Bitfarms, IREN, TeraWulf, and DMG Blockchain, are “narrowing the gap, with less than 1% separating the top five miners.”
In terms of utilization, MARA reported the “highest rate at 98%, followed by Hut 8 (98%), DMGI (95%), Gryphon Mining (94%) and CleanSpark (92%).”
The Bitcoin mined per MW is used for “assessing operational efficiency and resource utilization, Bit Digital achieved the highest Bitcoin production per MW with 0.93 Bitcoin per MW, followed by CleanSpark at 0.86, IREN 0.82, and MARA at 0.81.”