By Adedapo Adesanya
The tumultuous 2022 year for the crypto market did not spare crypto mining companies, which lost billions of dollars to the tune of $5.2 billion in their stock values.
According to data presented by BitcoinCasinos.com and sent to Business Post, the world’s five largest crypto mining companies have collectively lost $5.2 billion in market cap year-over-year.
Known as the crypto winter, trading volume slumped, and crypto prices drowned in the aftermath of one of the most brutal years for the crypto industry.
Crypto mining stocks, represented by the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK), dramatically underperformed the broader market last year. According to Yahoo Finance, BLOK provided a total return of -54.3 per cent last year, deep below the S&P 500’s total return of -19.44 per cent.
The melting stock prices of crypto mining companies led to colossal market cap drops. The Ycharts data showed the combined market cap of Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings, Canaan Inc., Cipher Mining Technologies, and Hut 8 Mining, the world`s five largest crypto mining companies, amounted to over $8.5 billion in January last year. Over the past twelve months, this value slumped by 61 per cent to below $3.3bn.
The world`s largest crypto miner, Riot Blockchain, has lost 57 per cent or around $1.3 billion of its stock value year-over-year. Still, that was 11 per cent less than Marathon Digital Holdings, the second-largest company in the market. In January 2022, the stock value of the Las Vegas-based crypto mining company stood at close to $3 billion, and now it`s less than $980 million.
Although all five crypto mining companies suffered a double-digit market cap drop, Chinese Canaa Inc. saw the least damage. Statistics show that Canaan`s market cap dropped by 46 per cent year-over-year, with the company losing around $450 million in stock value.
On the other hand, New York-based Cipher Mining Technologies saw the biggest drop, with its stock value slumping by 67 per cent year-over-year and $565 million being wiped off its market cap. Hut 8 Mining stands close, with a 65 per cent year-over-year drop to $480.7 million.
Besides its biggest players losing billions of dollars in stock value, the crypto mining industry has also witnessed a considerable drop in crypto mining revenues.
In January 2022, the miners’ average daily revenue amounted to $41.1 million, revealed the Blockchain data. By June, this figure nearly halved to $27.9 million, reflecting the Bitcoin price drop. However, July saw only $18.2 million in daily mining revenues, which continued floating around this value in the following months before falling to 2022`s low of $15.5 million in December.
Although this figure rose to $15.7 million as of last week, this still represents a massive 61 per cent drop year-over-year.
Modupe Gbadeyanka