Bitcoin mining expenses surge 168% amid capacity growth

BitFuFu expands its mining capacity by over 60% despite a dramatic rise in Bitcoin mining costs post-halving.

BitFuFu, a cloud mining company affiliated with Bitmain, has released an unaudited financial and operational report on its second-quarter 2024 results, which ended on June 30.

The results reveal a significant surge in the cost of Bitcoin (BTC) mining amid the challenges and growth the firm has experienced over the last 12 months. 

Alongside this surge in cost, the report also noted increased mining capacity under management, increasing “62.5% to 24.7 EH/s, compared to 15.2 EH/s during the same period of 2023.”

Related: Bitcoin miners may gain $13.9B yearly from 20% shift to AI and HPC — VanEck

Bitcoin mining cost surge 

Among the statistics reported by BitFuFu in its Q2 report, the most dramatic change was the average cost required to mine each BTC, surging to $51,887.

The sharp price rise can be seen when compared to $19,344 per mined BTC in the same period in 2023 and can be attributed to higher electricity and operational costs.

The surge can also be attributed to the April 2024 BTC halving event, as the difficulty of mining ramped up while BTC rewards were cut by 50%.

Related: Texas senator discloses up to $100K in BTC after blockchain endorsement

Capacity and revenue growth

Although the firm’s BTC mining costs significantly increased, BitFuFu expanded its mining operations’ scale. 

With the increase to 24.7 exahashes per second (EH/s), the BTC mining company increased the capacity of its operations by over 60% amid the mining-related cost surge.

The BTC mining firm also reported an almost 70% increase in total revenue, reaching $129.4 million in Q2 2024, up from $76.3 million in the same period in 2023.

The revenue growth can be attributed to the company’s expansion of its cloud-mining services, which generated $77 million during the reporting period.

Related: Bitcoin funding rates hit YTD lows, bearish trend looms — CryptoQuant

BTC analysts optimistic

In an Aug. 19 interview with CNBC, Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets research at VanEck, explained that BTC’s “forced selling [is] behind us.”

Sigel explained that the current state of the crypto market and BTC price is a “typical seasonal pattern” characterized by “one to three months” post-halving.

The forced selling Sigel referred to included the German government selling 49,858 BTC for $2.6 billion amid Mt. Gox creditor repayments being issued.

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