As per a research report released by the Wall Street bank on Monday, the combined market capitalization of the 14 U.S.-listed bitcoin (BTC) miners, which includes JPMorgan, reached an unprecedented peak of $22.8 billion on June 15. Almost all of the companies outperformed bitcoin in the first two weeks of June, according to the bank; the poorest performer was Argo Blockchain (ARBK), which dropped 7%, while Core Scientific (CORZ) added 117%. In the same time frame, the biggest cryptocurrency in the world had a 3% decline.
According to the research, investors responded favorably to news of Core Scientific’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup CoreWeave, which led to a boost in bitcoin mining stocks in the first half of the month. The decline in mining difficulty since the reward reduction in April has continued. According to experts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce, “the network hashrate, a proxy for industry competition and mining difficulty, declined ~7 EH/s (1%) since May.”
The hashrate held by U.S.-listed miners has climbed, and the 14 businesses collectively now “accounts for ~23.8% of the global network hashrate,” an increase of about 1% from the previous month. According to the bank, this was the second month that US miners had seen increases in network hashrate, which was a positive indication that “inefficient private operators scaled back operations post-halving.”