The price of the most efficient bitcoin miners fell 77% from last year, as investors avoid buying cryptocurrencies whose value has fallen by almost a percentage, according to the newspaper.The Wall Street newspaper“.
The machines used to process transactions now cost around $ 24 per 100 terahash, a measure of the processing capacity of the Bitcoin network, after the same equipment sold for around $ 106 last year, according to mining company Luxor. Technology.
Mining companies like Core Scientific quickly expanded the use of these machines, sometimes even borrowing hundreds of millions to buy them and building warehouses to house the machines, when cryptocurrencies were booming.
But once the US central bank started raising interest rates, riskier assets became less attractive and both tech stocks and cryptocurrencies dropped dramatically.
When bitcoin plummeted, which is currently down about 70% from a year ago, the expenses of the mining companies, especially the payment of debt, exceeded their revenues.
For some of these companies, the only way to raise money right now is to sell their devices.
Core Scientific, one of the largest mining companies in the world, announced Wednesday that it will not make payments on “many of its equipment and other financing transactions,” amid fears of bankruptcy, with its shares down nearly 99% since. beginning of the year.
Last week, Argo Blockchain said it would sell 3,800 brand new machines that hadn’t been unboxed.
Many mining companies have seen sharp drops in the value of their shares this year as cryptocurrency prices drop.
Conversely, mining remains profitable for companies that do not suffer from high debt burdens, and with some closing these operations, others are filling the void and the aggregate scale on the Bitcoin network has recently hit record highs, which is a sign of putting more devices online, according to the “Blockchain” website.
Among these mining equipment buyers is Bitdir Technologies, which has set up a $ 250 million fund to purchase and operate mining equipment.
