Crypto Miners Miss On Revenue as BTC Bull Run Pauses For Breath (WULF, MARA, HIVE)

Despite an increase in revenue, three major publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies on Wall Street reported net losses in their third-quarter outcomes, highlighting the challenging environment even for top players in the cryptocurrency mining sector.

With Bitcoin having hit new highs in recent days, close to $90,000, the bullish momentum in all things crypto has continued at a pace, with some of the recent pullback in the companies below likely in part due to BTC taking a breather.

Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA), a leading name in the Bitcoin mining industry, reported a considerable net loss of $124.8 million for the third quarter of 2024, in spite of earning $131.6 million in revenue. As far as market consensus, MARA missed on revenues, with the street expecting $144.35 million, yet the EPS loss was considerably narrower than expected at -$0.20 (against expectations of -$0.29).

TeraWulf Inc. (NASDAQ: WULF) did not fare much better, with a net loss of $22.7 million. However, the company did witness a 42.8% increase in revenue, amounting to $27.1 million during the same period. TeraWulf also reported that the cost of power per Bitcoin mined had risen when compared year-over-year, signalling increased operational costs that could be undermining profitability.

Markets were expecting WULF to come in with revenues of $31.79 million, with an earnings per share of -$0.04, yet the company missed on both with EPS coming in at -$0.06.

Adding to the list, HIVE Digital Technologies (NASDAQ: HIVE) came in with revenue of $22.65 million against an expected $24.98 million. HIVE's loss before tax of $7.3 million is a significant improvement over the $22.9 million loss in the same period last year.

Nevertheless, the broader industry trends give cause for concern as overall mining revenues fell for the fourth straight month, and the daily block reward gross profit dipped by 2% in the latest records. This downturn reflects the increasing difficulty of turning a profit in Bitcoin mining due to rising costs, reduced rewards, and intense competition.

After such a bull run in pricing on each of the above stocks, anything other than beats, and Bitcoin moving upwards was always going to make for a difficult print. WULF has seen it's stock gain 89.98% over the past month of trading, as MARA added 48.59%, and HIVE up 56.42% as a huge swathe of bullishness came into all things crypto post the US Presidential race declaration. Incoming President Trump is seen as being a crypto bull who has indicated a desire to pull mining back Stateside, but the fundamentals at some stage will need to catch up with valuations.

While these major players continue to bet on the future of cryptocurrency mining by expanding their operations and optimizing existing ones, they do so in the face of mounting losses and revenue squeezes.