Public BTC Miners Increased Bitcoin Production In January

The year-end was marked as unlucky for Bitcoin miners due to unexpected weather conditions in North America. Sudden storms and power interruptions severely hampered mining activities in the nation. Earlier in September, the three largest US-based Bitcoin miners suffered nearly $1 billion losses due to unfavorable market conditions.

Meanwhile, in January 2023, most public miners increased their BTC production due to stable electricity prices and better weather conditions. According to the Hahrate Index report, the public BTC miners experienced a steady growth in hash rate and Bitcoin production compared to the last month. Clean Spark, Core Scientific and Riot are the best performers in January, per the report.

America’s leading sustainable Bitcoin miner Clean Spark increased its BTC production by 50%, with 697 Bitcoins in January. According to its CEO, Zach Bradford, the firm reached an exceptional high of 98% at the start of the year. Core Scientific, a NASDAQ-listed Bitcoin mining company, produced 1,527 coins, followed by Riot, the second leading producer, which generated 740 BTC in January.

At the start of 2023, the hashrate had slightly increased; the US-based Cipher increased its hashrate by more than 50% with 4.3 EH/s. Clean Spark also increased its hash rate by 6.6 EH/s, and Core Scientific increased a little bit of its hash rate by 17 EH/s from 15.7 in December.

Jaran Mellerud wrote in his analysis that “Cipher has been building hard during this bear market, and I expect the company to reach its hasrate goal of 6EH/s of self-mining capacity by the end of Q1 2023.” As per Blockchain.com data, the Bitcoin hash rate was around 290 on Sunday, up from a weekly average of 275 hash rate last week. According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is trading at 21,619, down by 5.21% from the past seven days.

In December 2022, Core Scientific filed for bankruptcy due to unfavorable market conditions. The prolonged bear market and the fluctuating price of Bitcoin affected the crypto miner. Despite the bankruptcy, the company continued Bitcoin mining to repay debts.

According to a Feb 2 court filing, Core Scientific said old crypto mining rigs are “no longer necessary for the current operations and future business plans.” It further said, “The principal of the NYDIG Debt exceeds the value of the ASICs collateral.”

Mellerud said, “Core Scientific will likely see its hasrate shrink next month as it will hand over 18% of its mining rigs to lender New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) in exchange for extinguishing $39 million in debt.”