According to CoinDesk, Bitcoin's hashrate growth experienced a slowdown in January following months of rapid expansion. The network's difficulty saw its first decline since September, suggesting that while publicly listed companies have continued to increase their hash power, their growth has not been sufficient to offset the withdrawal of smaller operators. Despite this, the total revenue from Bitcoin (BTC) mining remained stable at $1.4 billion for the month. Publicly traded mining companies, which collectively hold 99,000 Bitcoin valued at approximately $9.7 billion, accounted for about 30% of the hashrate market share in January.
Competition among the largest publicly traded mining companies has intensified. Marathon Digital (MARA) maintained its leading position with a realized hashrate of 41.65 EH/s, followed by CleanSpark at 34.77 EH/s. Riot Platforms, which has been aggressively expanding, is closing in with 31.27 EH/s. The report highlights that competition within the 30 EH/s group is intensifying, while the gap between this tier and the 10 EH/s group, which includes Core Scientific, Cipher Mining, and Bitfarms, continues to widen. The dominance of top miners is unsurprising given the recent halving event, which reduced Bitcoin mining rewards by half and squeezed profit margins, even with BTC prices nearing $100,000. In this environment, smaller players find it challenging to compete with larger operations that were already positioned to dominate the market. Many miners are now exploring alternative revenue sources, such as hosting machines for AI and HPC firms.
The report also notes that mining hardware imports to the U.S. slowed in January, contributing to the stabilization of hashrate growth. However, some companies, including Blockchain Power Corp and AcroHash, have imported significant amounts of cooling infrastructure from Bitmain. Looking ahead, TheMinerMag predicts another difficulty adjustment decline in February as some smaller mining operators exit the market due to lower profitability.