Hashprice PAMPS As BTC ????♂??? TO $62K!!!
Mario Andres Gutierrez, Msc
Critical Energy & Digital Infrastructure | Email in Contact Info
Welcome to the latest issue of the Vibe Check, your weekly source at the intersection of Bitcoin, Energy, and Bitcoin Mining.
Grab a ? and start the week with all the metrics and stories that shake and bake the Bitcoin Mining industry. Subscribe to the Vibe Check Substack!
Subscribe and share with your friends, colleagues, and family!
W9 ‘24 Vibe Check
The Overview Vibe
Bitcoin said “Hold my ??” and ran over 20+% up to over 62K this week. Hashprice ran up over $100/PH/DAY, outperforming BTC price thanks to a -2.9% downward difficulty adjustment down to 79.35 T. With transaction fees not “mooning”, we can expect this elevated hash price to only deflate through upward difficulty and price dives. We can expect hashrate to ramp up towards 600 EH/s as marginal machines revive until the next difficult adjustment.
The price run-up last week is largely due to the continued institutional buying of the Spot ETFs, with Blackrock’s IBIT hitting $10B+ AUM. The meme “It’s not a bull market until Coinbase crashes” came back in vogue as Coinbase crashed and eventually recovered during the price upwind. Micheal Saylor continues to stack harder and buy the local top than anyone with $MSTR’s recent purchase of 3000 BTC.
The public markets continue to round our EY 2023 and Q1’24 results and strategic ASIC purchases. Bitmain continues to access public market liquidity through their affiliate BitFuFu’s SPAC merger debut on the NASDAQ. RIOT 0.00%↑continues to prep for the havlening with a purchase of 31,500 air-cooled M60S machines from MicroBT to fill expansion rackspace and replace older machines at Rockdale.
Marathon Digital fronted $72M to their ASIC partner Auradine while jumping into the out-of-band block space market. Block 832849 was a single 3.99 MB block coordinated with the inscription of an ordinal project. Marathon joins Luxor and DMG Blockchain in offering blockspace to out-of-band demand. Since MARA 0.33%↑ owns its pool, facilitating an out-of-band payment for blockspace benefits their revenues directly with no other miner counterparty to account for. While this practice will remain controversial, miners will continue to explore other revenue sources as block subsidy revenues drop by 50% in April.
The biggest takeaway from MARA’s earnings call was the strategy of in-organic acquisitions to secure rackspace for the future delivery of new-gen machines. This strategy represents a growing segment of public miners (CleanSpark, though they are building their expansion also) that flex their capital market muscle and ability to find high-value $/MW rackspace. This strategy contrasts other peers (RIOT, IREN, HUT as examples) who are betting on their development and supply chain expertise to build that rackspace growth.
There is a unique opportunity after the havlening for buyers to find great $/MW deals and private developers with site and infrastructure advantages to demand a premium from the public markets for their assets. This dynamic is similar to the recent M&A cycle in U.S. shale, where production inventory held by family and private equity-backed companies is in vogue with public peers looking to derisk future growth. While I am long hashrate, I AM LONGER RACKSPACE!
I recommend that y’all take a look at ERCOT’s most recent operations report on Winter Storm Heather. The data (shown above) clearly shows the benefit of having Bitcoin miners curtailing to balance the Texas grid during times of need. Show it to all your friends that drink too much haterade. I wish everyone had a great weekend. Remember to help your friends and family take corn OFF THE EXCHANGES as the price starts to run!
Bitcoin/Mining Metrics
Sources: Hashrate Index1, Bitbo2
Headlines & News
Featured
领英推荐
General PubCo Updates
Operations & Site Updates
Capital Markets & M&A
Hardware/Tech Updates?
Research/Reports/Newsletters
The Media Vibe
Energy Corner
The Meme Vibe
Reminder: Subscribe to The Vibe Check Substack!
Subscribe and keep your eye out for the development of the Vibe Check throughout 2024!