Bitcoin miners at a crossroads: seize market share or go all in on AI?

作者：James Van Straten，CoinDesk；编译：白水，金色财经

摘要

尽管纯矿工的市场份额不断扩大，但投资者仍继续为进军人工智能和高性能计算数据中心的矿工支付溢价。
Marathon、Riot 和 CleanSpark 9 月份的产量均高于 8 月份。
自 4 月减半以来，Marathon 9 月份的比特币产量超过了其他任何一个月。

在这个利润微薄的时代，比特币 (BTC) 矿工正面临着最奇怪的生存威胁：他们可以转向为人工智能 (AI) 或高性能计算 (HPC) 提供动力，并看着他们的股票飙升，或者他们可以坚持并主导他们原来的地盘，但看到股价低迷。

无论如何，就股票回报而言，这就是 9 月份挖矿的故事。

市值最大的矿工——MARA Holdings (MARA)、Riot Platforms (RIOT) 和 CleanSpark (CLSK)——上个月挖出的比特币总量与 8 月相比都有所增加。这些公司的资产负债表更强劲，采矿业务规模更大，这有助于他们应对 4 月份比特币减半导致的挖矿盈利能力下降。

然而，投资者并没有为他们的股票支付溢价，因为他们在 9 月份的表现继续不佳。与此同时，专注于人工智能和 HPC 计算的矿工，如 Core Scientific (CORZ)、TerraWulf (WULF) 和 IREN (IREN)，在 9 月份击败了比特币。

9 月份比特币矿工股价（TradingView）

投资者情绪的转变并不令人意外，因为 4 月份的减半（将 BTC 挖矿奖励减少了 50%）使得挖矿竞争更加激烈，利润率也更低。加剧负面情绪的是，美国最近批准了现货比特币交易所交易基金 (ETF)，这降低了投资者对矿业股票的兴趣。

相反，投资者正在奖励那些现在使用部分数据中心来托管 AI 和 HPC 相关机器以实现收入多元化的矿工。AI 和 HPC 计算需要大量电力，而比特币矿工已经获得了这些电力，这使得它们成为希望快速发展业务的 AI 和 HPC 公司有吸引力的资源。

事实上，从 9 月份上市矿商的股价来看，市值较大的矿商股价上涨了 4% 至 9%。与人工智能和 HPC 相关的矿商本月涨幅高达 25%。比特币的价格上涨了约 7%，而广泛的加密货币市场基准 CoinDesk 20 则上涨了约 12%。

尽管比特币交易相对平稳，但矿商在 10 月份也已经开始飙升。Riot 上涨了 12%，Cipher Mining (CIFR) 上涨了 8%。从历史上看，10 月也是比特币表现最强劲的月份之一，因此获得了“Uptober”的绰号。

9 月总结

减半后，挖矿经济形势严峻。

比特币网络的哈希率（按七天移动平均线计算）升至 693 EH/s 的历史新高，同时保持 630 EH/s 的平均哈希率。哈希率是挖矿竞争程度的指标，用于衡量网络上有多少计算能力在线。

9 月，比特币难度（衡量在网络中挖掘新区块难度的指标）也创下历史新高。比特币难度是衡量在网络中挖掘新区块难度的指标，它根据计算能力每 2,016 个区块进行调整，确保每 10 分钟持续挖掘一次区块。与此同时，根据 Glassnode 的数据，尽管哈希价格仍接近历史低点，但作为衡量矿工盈利能力的指标，哈希价格创下一个月新高，为 48.0 美元/小时/秒。

深入研究各个矿工的月度数据，MARA（市值 48 亿美元，最大的上市矿工，前身为 Marathon Digital）似乎在 9 月份取得了成功，其 9 月份的通电哈希率提高了 5%，达到 36.9 EH/s。MARA 还开采了 705 BTC，比上个月增加了 5%，是自 4 月减半以来单月开采量最高的一次。该公司还将其 BTC 持有量增加到 26,842，是上市公司中第二大比特币储备，仅次于 MicroStrategy。同时，它仍有望在 2024 年底达到 50 EH/s。

Marathon 月度比特币产量（Farside 投资者）

市值第三大的矿商 Riot Platforms 9 月份的比特币开采量也增加了 28%，因为该公司提高了其设施的计算能力。Riot 预计，到 2024 年第四季度，其哈希率将达到 36.3 EH/s，到 2025 年下半年将达到 56.6 EH/s。Riot 目前在其资产负债表中持有 10,427 BTC。

飓风 Helene 致部分基础设施关闭

9 月份其他引人注目的趋势包括飓风Helene的影响。市值第四大的矿商 CleanSpark 就是受影响的公司之一。该公司表示，其基础设施没有遭受任何重大损失，但由于飓风不得不关闭一些业务。

由于比特币矿工的资本市场艰难，这些公司开始使用创造性的方式筹集资金来扩大业务。其中一家公司 Cipher Mining 在 9 月份脱颖而出，当月开采了 155 枚比特币，并出售了 923 枚比特币以购买一个 300MW 的采矿站点，该站点将用于 HPC 托管。该矿商现在拥有 1,512 枚比特币。

Author: James Van Straten, CoinDesk; Translation: Baishui, Golden Finance

Summary

Despite the increasing market share of pure miners, investors continue to pay a premium for miners entering the ai and high-performance computing datacenter space.
Production volumes for Marathon, Riot, and CleanSpark in September all exceeded those in August.
Since the halving in April, Marathon's bitcoin production in September surpassed any other month.

In this era of slim profits, bitcoin (BTC) miners are facing the strangest survival threat: they can pivot to powering ai or high-performance computing (HPC), watching their stocks soar, or they can persevere and dominate their original territory, but see their stock prices languish.

In any case, in terms of stock returns, this is the mining story of September.

The largest market cap miners - MARA Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT), and CleanSpark (CLSK) - all saw an increase in the total amount of bitcoin mined last month compared to August. These companies have stronger balance sheets, larger mining business scales, which help them cope with the mining profitability decrease caused by the April halving of bitcoin.

However, investors did not pay a premium for their stocks, as their performance in September continued to be poor. Meanwhile, miners focusing on ai and HPC computing, such as Core Scientific (CORZ), TerraWulf (WULF), and IREN (IREN), outperformed bitcoin in September.

Bitcoin miner stock prices in September (TradingView)

The shift in investor sentiment is not surprising, as the halving in April (reducing BTC mining rewards by 50%) has intensified mining competition and lowered profitability. Exacerbating the negative sentiment, the recent approval of Bitcoin ETF trading on spot exchanges in the USA has reduced investor interest in mining stocks.

On the contrary, investors are rewarding miners who are now using partial datacenters to host AI and HPC-related machines for revenue diversification purposes. AI and HPC computations require a large amount of electrical utilities, which bitcoin miners already have access to, making them attractive resources for AI and HPC companies looking to rapidly grow their business.

In fact, looking at the stock prices of miners listed in September, stocks of larger market cap miners have risen by 4% to 9%. Miners related to ai and HPC have seen gains of up to 25% this month. Bitcoin has grown by around 7%, while the widely followed crypto market benchmark CoinDesk 20 has risen by approximately 12%.

Despite relatively stable bitcoin trading, miners have also started surging in October. Riot has risen by 12%, Cipher Mining (CIFR) has risen by 8%. Historically, October is also one of the strongest months for bitcoin performance, earning it the nickname 'Uptober'.

September Summary

After the halving, the mining economy is facing a severe situation.

The hash rate of the Bitcoin network (calculated by a seven-day moving average) has risen to a historical high of 693 EH/s, while maintaining an average hash rate of 630 EH/s. The hash rate is an indicator of mining competition, used to measure how much computing power is online in the network.

In September, the Bitcoin difficulty (an index measuring the difficulty of mining new blocks in the network) also hit a historical high. Bitcoin difficulty is an indicator of the difficulty of mining new blocks in the network, adjusted every 2,016 blocks based on computing power to ensure blocks are mined every 10 minutes. Meanwhile, according to Glassnode data, despite hash price still being close to historical lows, as an indicator of miners' profit-making ability, hash price reached a one-month high of $48.0 per hour/second.

A deep dive into the monthly data of various miners, MARA (with a market cap of 4.8 billion USD, the largest listed miner, formerly Marathon Digital) seems to have succeeded in September. Its electric hash rate in September increased by 5% to 36.9 EH/s. MARA also mined 705 BTC, an increase of 5% from the previous month, the highest monthly mining output since the halving in April. The company also increased its BTC holdings to 26,842, the second largest Bitcoin reserve among listed companies, second only to MicroStrategy. At the same time, it is still expected to reach 50 EH/s by the end of 2024.

Marathon monthly Bitcoin production (Farside investors)

The third largest miner by market cap, Riot Platforms, saw a 28% increase in Bitcoin mining in September as the company enhanced its facility's computing power. Riot expects its hash rate to reach 36.3 EH/s by the fourth quarter of 2024, and 56.6 EH/s by the second half of 2025. Riot currently holds 10,427 BTC on its balance sheet.

Hurricane Helene caused partial infrastructure shutdown.

Other notable trends in September include the impact of Hurricane Helene. CleanSpark, the fourth largest mining company by market cap, is one of the affected companies. The company stated that its infrastructure did not suffer any major losses, but had to close some operations due to the hurricane.

Due to the challenging capital markets for bitcoin miners, these companies are starting to raise funds in creative ways to expand their business. One of these companies, Cipher Mining, stood out in September by mining 155 bitcoins and selling 923 bitcoins to acquire a 300MW mining site, which will be used for HPC hosting. The miner now holds 1,512 bitcoins.

The translation is provided by third-party software.

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比特币矿工的十字路口：抢占市场份额还是All In AI？