Bitcoin (BTC) Hashrate Rose Slightly in January, Mining Difficulty Fell: JPMorgan

The Bitcoin network hashrate, a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty, rose slightly in January, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Monday.

Bitcoin mining difficulty, a measure of how hard it is to compete in the industry, fell 2% in January from the month prior, banking giant JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) said in a research note on Monday.

The average mining difficulty for the month was 45.6 trillion, the bank noted.

Network hashrate rose slightlyThe monthly average network hashrate rose 1% to 785 exahashes per second (EH/s), the bank noted.

However, the month-end, weekly moving average hashrate was 781 EH/s, a 2% decline from the end of December, the report said.

"This is relatively uncommon, and a modest tailwind for bitcoin (BTC) mining economics," analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote, adding that network difficulty remains 25% higher than before the halving event last April.

Bitcoin’s 7-day moving average hashrate hit an all-time high of 833 exahashes per second (EH/s), a CoinDesk report noted on Tuesday.

Mining profitability also improved in JanuaryThe bank said that miners earned an average of $57,200 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue, which is less than a 1% increase from December.

The total market cap of the bitcoin miners that the bank tracks rose 5% from the month prior.

Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR) and Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT) outperformed, gaining 23% and 16% respectively, after announcing high performance computing (HPC) related news.

TeraWulf (NYSE:WULF) underperformed in January, with the shares dropping 16%.

Here's how some bitcoin miners performed in January:

Bitcoin mining stocks have soared this year as institutional demand for the cryptocurrency grows and the bull market in the S&P 500 continues.

Bitcoin miners are expected to benefit from the rising price of BTC, which hit a record high of over $76,000 in November.