Bitcoin Mining Profitability Climbs for a Second Month Running in December, Says JPMorgan.

Bitcoin miners experienced an uptick in daily revenue and gross profit for the second consecutive month in December, reaching their highest levels since April, according to JPMorgan’s latest research report released on Monday.

The increase in mining profitability came as Bitcoin’s (BTC) price rally continued to outpace the growth in network hashrate. JPMorgan estimated that miners earned an average of $57,100 per exahash per second (EH/s) in daily block reward revenue last month, a 10% rise from November.

Despite this growth, analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce highlighted that daily revenue and gross profit per EH/s are still significantly lower than pre-halving levels, down by 43% and 52%, respectively.

The network hashrate saw a 6% increase in December, reaching an average of 779 EH/s, indicating a rise in computational power used for mining and transaction processing. In addition, mining difficulty increased by 7%, now standing 27% higher than before the reward halving event in April.

In 2024, the network’s hashrate grew by 54%, a slower pace compared to the 103% growth seen in 2023.

The market capitalization of the 14 publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies monitored by JPMorgan dropped 23% to $28 billion in December, after a 52% rise in November.

Among these companies, TeraWulf (WULF) was the top performer, with its stock gaining 136% last year, surpassing Bitcoin’s 120% increase during the same period.