Wall Street bank JP Morgan (JPM) said the second quarter and summer of 2025 will be a transformative time for Bitcoin. BTC$123,012.36 The miner features record cash operating profits and a focus on high-performance computing (HPC).
Cipher Mining's (CIFR) 244 megawatt (MW) colocation agreement with Fluidstack and IREN's (IREN) expansion to more than 23,000 GPUs highlight that shift, the bank said in a report Tuesday.
Despite the soaring hashrate, analysts at the bank noted that miners' gross profits increased quarter-over-quarter, supported by higher Bitcoin prices and a more efficient fleet.
Analysts said production costs rose slightly due to increased competition and increased investment in high-performance computing (HPC). IREN and Cipher had the lowest power costs per mined Bitcoin at around $29,000 and $31,200, while MARA (MARA) had the highest at around $56,200. On a full load basis (power + cash SG&A), IREN and CleanSpark (CLSK) lead with costs of $54,000 and nearly $60,000 per coin, compared to RIOT's $81,000. The average price of Bitcoin during the quarter was around $98,500, and most operators made a profit.
The miner also accelerated fundraising, issuing about $590 million in new stock, a significant increase from the first quarter, with much of it going to HPC projects, JPMorgan said. IREN has raised $263 million to complete a 50 exahash expansion and begin construction of a 75MW water-cooled data center called Horizon 1. Group-wide capital expenditures totaled approximately $900 million, below their peak in late 2024, but increasing since then.
Miners collectively spent a record $2.1 billion on energy, but gross profits held steady at about $2.1 billion, with a profit margin of nearly 53%, analysts estimated.
The bank said Bitcoin's strength and efficiency gains continue to offset network growth and maintain profitability even as competition increases.
Read more: Bitcoin miner market cap hits record in September: JP Morgan
