Which Bitcoin mining stocks are available? Is 2025 a good time to invest in mining stocks?

In 2024, Cryptos are favored, among which $比特幣 (BTC.CC)$ surged 1.21 times, reaching a historical high of 0.108 million dollars.

An Analyst pointed out that $比特幣 (BTC.CC)$ it may rise above 0.125 million dollars in the first quarter of 2025 but could also drop to around 0.077 million dollars. The key influencing factor will be whether Trump will quickly fulfill his promises to the Cryptos industry upon taking office. According to data from the large cryptographic betting platform Polymarket, as of January 8, the likelihood of Trump establishing a BTC strategic reserve plummeted from 60% at the time of the November victory to 31%.

This is clearly not good news; as Trump's inauguration date approaches, the fluctuations of BTC may continue. On the other hand, BTC miners are still buying BTC in large amounts, is this a bullish signal? Is investing in BTC mining stocks a good choice? This week's opportunity quick course will explore the process of BTC generation, as well as the business development and investment potential of related mining stocks!

What is BTC "mining"?

Everyone is familiar with it, $比特幣 (BTC.CC)$ it is a decentralized virtual currency that is not subject to traditional Financial Institutions such as governments and banks, allowing transactions to be completed on a peer-to-peer basis. For example, if you want to buy a car with BTC and the other party is willing to accept BTC as payment, you can directly send BTC to purchase a car.

Due to the fact that there are only 21 million BTC, it has gained extremely strong scarcity. As its price continues to rise, more and more people have started to join in "mining." However, mining is not an easy task; it requires a huge investment of funds, expensive equipment, and professional manpower... Therefore, without a solid foundation, one cannot undertake this delicate task.

Simply put, BTC "mining" is the process by which miners use specialized equipment to solve computational problems. Once they successfully mine, they receive a certain amount of BTC as a reward. However, mining consumes a large amount of computational resources and electricity. It is said that the electricity consumed by BTC mining each year is equivalent to the annual electricity usage of a medium-sized country, and the price of a professional mining rig can reach up to 0.01 million dollars... As competition intensifies, the probability of individuals or small mining farms successfully mining BTC decreases, and only mining farms with large-scale computational power can survive long-term.

So, for investors, what investment opportunities arise during the BTC generation process?

5 mining-related stocks

The mining business involves companies that specifically mine BTC or provide mining equipment, such as those mining companies that many are familiar with. $MARA Holdings(MARA.US)$ 、 $Hut 8(HUT.US)$ 、 $Riot Platforms(RIOT.US)$ and suppliers of mining equipment. $NVIDIA(NVDA.US)$ ， $Canaan(CAN.US)$ When the BTC price rises, the earnings of these companies will also increase, attracting more investors' attention.

The strength competition among BTC mining companies mainly depends on the efficiency of BTC extraction and comprehensive costs, usually measured by hash rate, which represents the total computing power invested by the company. A higher hash rate means a greater probability of successfully mining BTC.

Next, we will focus on sharing five mining stock companies, comparing their business development situations one by one.

Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA)

• Core Business: The largest BTC mining company globally, with a Market Cap of 6.222 billion USD. The core business is BTC mining and holding. As a miner that excavates and purchases BTC, a mixed strategy provides operational flexibility, allowing for significant purchases when BTC prices drop, thereby optimizing costs and maintaining the company's overall competitiveness. Currently $MARA Holdings(MARA.US)$ holding 44,893 BTC, second only to the BTC whale MSTR, making it the second-largest company in the world by BTC holdings. Against the backdrop of a BTC surge in 2024, MARA continues to buy a large amount of coins, purchasing a total of 22,065 BTC, far exceeding the annual production of 9,457 BTC, which also reflects MARA's bet on the BTC market.

• Relative Advantage: As the largest mining company globally, MARA excels in mining equipment, labor force, and extraction efficiency. From the performance data of Q3 2024, MARA has developed 11 mining sites with 268,000 workers, achieving a hash rate of 36.9 EH/s, the highest among peers, showcasing MARA's leadership position in the mining industry. However, affected by the halving event, MARA's Q3 and Q2 extraction volumes are significantly lower than Q1, with a QoQ decrease of 27%.

• Technical Analysis: MARA's stock price has recently followed the BTC pullback, with short-term support at around 17 USD and resistance near 20.6 USD (corresponding to the BTC 0.1 million threshold).

Riot Platforms (RIOT)

• Core Business: Primarily engaged in BTC mining and data center hosting and engineering, with a Market Cap of 4.134 billion USD, 80% of revenue comes from BTC mining. Last year, the company also acquired another BTC miner, Block Mining. Currently $Riot Platforms(RIOT.US)$ holding 17,722 BTC, an overall increase of 141% compared to last year, with 5,784 BTC acquired as early as December last year, indicating RIOT's very active participation in hoarding coins during this BTC rally.

• Relative Advantage:$Riot Platforms(RIOT.US)$ The mining efficiency is relatively high, with a single unit cost of about $35,376, which can ensure profit margins to a certain extent. RIOT's current hash rate has reached 31.5 EH/s, although lower than MARA, it has increased by 155% compared to last year, showing astonishing growth rate. After the BTC halving in April last year, RIOT's mining volume decreased significantly, but it quickly stabilized in Q3, indicating significant improvement in RIOT's computing power.

• Technical Analysis: Riot's technical trend is more optimistic; referring to the medium and long-term moving averages EMA12 and EMA50, the Candlestick is still in a bullish trend, with short-term support around $11.4.

CleanSpark (CLSK)

• Main Business: Mainly engaged in BTC mining, with almost all income coming from mining. The company has a market cap of $2.952 billion and currently holds approximately 8,049 BTC.

• Relative Advantage: Market size is second only to MARA and RIOT, with a current hash rate of 33.5 EH/s, just behind MARA. Overall, CLSK's competitiveness is quite good. The company recently announced its 2024 annual report, with total revenue of $0.378 billion, an increase of 125% year-on-year, but net profit has not turned positive and has slightly decreased compared to last year. Additionally, since the BTC halving, CLSK's output has consistently declined, showing no signs of recovery, and the company's mining progress needs to be closely monitored moving forward.

• Technical Analysis: $CleanSpark(CLSK.US)$It has decreased by 16.5% in the past year, and the current stock price trend is similar to its peers, facing relatively strong resistance around 12.4, with short-term support at approximately 8.9.

Iris Energy (IREN)

• Main Business: Focused on BTC mining.$IREN Ltd(IREN.US)$Founded in 2021, the company quickly gained market attention, especially as it mined using sustainable energy strategies.

• Relative Advantage: The balance sheet is relatively stable, holding more than $0.32 billion in assets. IREN has a first-mover advantage in high-performance computing and has been striving to increase BTC yield and revenue through enhanced computing power, currently achieving a hash rate of 31 EH/s, expected to reach 50 EH/s by H1 2025. As of December 2024, BTC output will reach 529 coins per month, showing rapid growth. According to IREN's public data from Q3 2024, IREN significantly outperforms its peers like MARA and RIOT in controlling mining costs, making it highly competitive.

• Technical Analysis: Looking at the past year's trends, IREN is one of the top performers among the five companies. However, recently it has followed BTC down; referencing the Fibonacci retracement, it found support near 61.8%, with a reference support price of $9.9.

Hut 8 (HUT)

• Main Business: Focused on BTC mining, custody services, and high-performance computer services.$Hut 8(HUT.US)$As one of the largest miners in North America, the company currently operates 20 sites, storing approximately 10,171 BTC, ranking highly within the industry.

• Relative Advantage: HUT currently owns about 49,400 mining machines, with a hash rate of approximately 4.7 EH/s, noticeably lower than several peers. However, HUT has been actively constructing energy infrastructure, currently managing a total energy capacity of 1,322 MW. Last year, it announced a partnership with Bitmain for mining machine development and upgrades, expecting the hash rate to reach 15 EH/s by Q2 2025.

Aside from the mining Business, the company's hosting and high-performance computer services account for the majority, contributing over 50% of revenue, serving as an extension and supplement to the mining Business. It is known that BTC will eventually be mined out, and HUT is expanding its business lines using existing computing equipment, which is beneficial for the company's future transformation.

• Technical Analysis: HUT's increase for the whole year of 2024 is 53.60%, which is the best performance among several miners. With reference to EMA12 and the 50-day moving average, it is still in a bullish trend, with strong support around a stock price of 22.5 dollars.

Valuation Situation

Comparing the cumulative quarterly performance data of five companies as of Q3 2024, it can be seen that $Hut 8(HUT.US)$ 's revenue growth rate and gross margin are relatively excellent, but its valuation indicators, PS and Price-to-Book ratio, are also the highest, and the debt-to-asset ratio is relatively high, which requires attention to the possibility of high valuations.

Among them, $MARA Holdings(MARA.US)$ 's gross margin is relatively poor, affected by a decrease in production due to the halving event on the revenue side and an increase on the cost side due to global hash rate growth. Additionally, the company deployed mining equipment and made business acquisitions in Q3, leading to an overall decline in profits.

Moreover,$IREN Ltd(IREN.US)$ The gross margin is also very prominent, which is closely related to IREN's renewable energy mining strategy. By developing renewable energy mining areas, it solves the energy supply problem and effectively reduces mining costs.

Investment summary.

總結一下，從股價走勢來看，2024年BTC挖礦股的表現比較一般，BTC全年漲幅為124%，但我們觀察的5隻礦股均未跑贏BTC，甚至還出現下跌。2025年會有反轉嗎？可以參考McNallieMoney給出了三個理由：

1.礦股公司也採用了類似 $Strategy(MSTR.US)$ 的可轉化債券購買BTC策略，但並沒有獲得相同的溢價。

2.礦股公司的資產，包括礦機，基礎設施都與比BTC價格強相關。比如在BTC牛市時，礦機的價格會翻好幾倍。

3.礦股公司可以通過挖掘和購買的混合策略來降低BTC持倉成本，從而提升整體營收並體現到財報上，而MSTR這樣的公司只能高價買入現貨。

另外，2024年12月15日財務會計標準委員會 ( FASB) 已經發佈首個加密貨幣會計準則，企業如持有BTC等加密貨幣時按公允價值計算，真實反映持幣損益。如果比BTC價格持續攀升，對於購買BTC的礦股公司來說，盈利會體現到財報上，而這部分利好暫時還未充分price in。因此，2025年的BTC礦股表現，可能會好於2024年。

Risk Warning

對於投資來說，投資BTC礦股也是間接投資BTC的一種方式，但要兩者的走勢並不完全重疊。投資礦股的難度甚至比直接投資BTC更大，需要承擔更多風險影響，建議留意以下幾個要點：

1. The impact of BTC halving: As the BTC reward halves every four years, it will directly lead to a decrease in production for mining companies under unchanged costs, causing revenues to decline sharply.

2. BTC mining is unsustainable: with a fixed supply of only 21 million BTC, 19.7 million BTC have already been mined, and the remaining amount is expected to be fully mined by the year 2140. Therefore, the business of BTC mining stocks is unsustainable, and most BTC mining stocks are only suitable as tools for short-term arbitrage.

3. Increased competition within the industry: Due to the limited supply of BTC and increasing difficulty, BTC mining companies must continuously increase their computing power and find ways to reduce costs. Industry competition will only become more intense, and companies with poor operational capabilities are likely to be eliminated in the competition.

Risk Disclosure: This content does not constitute a research report, is for reference only, and should not be used as the basis for any investment decision. The information contained herein is not a comprehensive description of the securities, markets, or developments mentioned. Although the sources of information are considered reliable, the accuracy or completeness of the above content is not guaranteed. Furthermore, there is no guarantee regarding the accuracy of any statements, viewpoints, or forecasts provided in this article.