Bitcoin’s Hashrate Growth Was Less Than Expected in January, According to JPMorgan.

In its latest research report, JPMorgan (JPM) provided an overview of the Bitcoin network’s performance for January, revealing a modest increase in hashrate but a decrease in mining difficulty.

The bank reported that the monthly average network hashrate rose by 1% to 785 exahashes per second (EH/s). In contrast, the mining difficulty saw a 2% reduction compared to December. At the end of the month, the 7-day moving average hashrate stood at 781 EH/s, a 2% drop from the previous month’s end. JPMorgan highlighted that such a decrease in mining difficulty is unusual and presents a small benefit for Bitcoin miners’ economics.

Despite this temporary reduction in difficulty, network difficulty remains 25% higher than it was before the halving event in April 2024. Additionally, Bitcoin’s 7-day moving average hashrate reached a new all-time high of 833 EH/s, according to CoinDesk.

JPMorgan also noted a slight increase in mining profitability for January, estimating that miners earned an average of $57,200 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue, which represents a minor gain of less than 1% compared to the previous month.

Bitcoin miners’ market capitalization tracked by the bank increased by 5% from the prior month. Cipher Mining (CIFR) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) outperformed their peers, with their shares gaining 23% and 16%, respectively, driven by announcements related to high-performance computing (HPC). In contrast, TeraWulf (WULF) faced difficulties, with a 16% drop in its stock price.