Bitcoin (BTC/USD) Miners Saw Mixed Performance in Early April: JP Morgan

JP Morgan analyst Reginald L. Smith observed that Bitcoin BTC/USD miners saw mixed performance in early April. A drop in the average Bitcoin price during the first half of the month strained mining economics despite solid operational gains in March.

Bitcoin (BTC) miners faced mixed fortunes in the first two weeks of April, observed JP Morgan analyst Reginald L. Smith.

What Happened: Smith noted that U.S.-listed miners saw limited gains in the first half of April, while cryptocurrencies and broader equities rebounded sharply.

The analyst estimated that the average Bitcoin price in early April was around $82,600, down 3% from March. It fell as low as $75,000 before rebounding to about $85,000.

March was a strong operational month for miners, with U.S.-listed miners adding about 15 EH/s to their hashrate and increasing coin production, partly due to easier year-over-year comparisons. This was largely led by IREN and Hut 8, Smith added.

However, the overall network hashrate grew faster than U.S. miners’ expansion, and Bitcoin’s average price dipped in the first half of April, putting pressure on mining profitability.

Smith further estimated that U.S.-listed miners are now trading at roughly 1.2 times their share of the four-year block reward opportunity, down from recent highs and the lowest in over two years.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $71,183.06, up 0.21 over the past 24 hours.

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Top Gainers And Losers: According to Smith, MARA Holdings and Bitdeer Technologies Group (NYSE:BTDR) were the best and worst-performing stocks over the first two weeks of April, respectively.

Other firms that delivered weaker performance than their peers are TeraWulf, IREN and Riot Platforms, owing to their exposure to high-performance computing.

The analyst added that the outperformance of pure-play miners over Bitcoin can be attributed to the anticipation of MINERs’ upcoming third-quarter revenue, which is expected to be strong.