Bitcoin Mining Economics Continued to Improve in December, JPMorgan Says

Bitcoin (BTC) mining economics continued to improve this month, as the hashprice, a measure of daily profitability, rose 5% from the end of November, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report Monday.

The hashprice increased as the rally in the world’s largest cryptocurrency outpaced the rise in the network hashrate, the report said. The hashrate is a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty.

The network hashrate has increased 6% month-to-date to an average of 773 exahashes per second (EH/s), the bank noted.

“We note miners earned about $57,300 in daily block reward revenue per EH/s over the first two weeks of December,” analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce wrote, adding that this is the highest level in the last seven months, but is still about 40% below pre-halving levels.

The combined hashrate of the fourteen U.S.-listed miners the bank tracks has increased almost 94% year-to-date to 222 EH/s and now accounts for around 29% of the global network, the bank said.

The total market cap of the miners the bank tracks fell 4% or $1.5 billion, having increased more than 50% following the U.S. presidential election.

The bank estimated that the U.S.-listed miners are currently trading on about two times their proportional share of the four-year block reward opportunity.