As of December 2024, publicly listed mining firms held more than 92,000 BTC on their balance sheets, a record high, according to TheMiningMag.
Year on year, the figure rose by about 136% from just over 39,000 BTC.
The increase was partly driven by MARA, Riot Platforms and Hut 8 shifting to a strategy of buying digital gold, following MicroStrategy’s example.
Four mining companies now hold more than 10,000 BTC each. In January, CleanSpark joined the trio above.
Ionic Digital, which holds 2,461 BTC, plans to list in the near term.
“Based on their current production rates and liquidation ratios, it is quite likely that the collective holdings [of public miners] will exceed 100,000 BTC within months,” TheMiningMag’s experts suggested.
JPMorgan analysts noted that the combined hashrate of 14 US-listed, tracked companies more than doubled over the year, CoinDesk reports.
Public miners’ share of the global network hashrate reached 30%.
In the first two weeks of January, bitcoin’s hashrate rose faster than its price, trimming mining profitability by roughly 1%. On average, miners earned about $54,900 per 1 EH/s per day.
Over the period, the sector’s combined market capitalisation rose 16%, or $4.5bn. Riot led with +32%, while Bitdeer lagged with a 4% decline.
In 2024, the strongest gains among miners were posted by Core Scientific (169%), Bitdeer (122%) and TeraWulf (112%).