Bitcoin Miner Riot Platforms’ Q2 Losses Hit $84.4 Million

Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Riot Platforms (RIOT) announced that its second-quarter losses tripled from the previous year as its overall operating costs increased by 48 percent.

The Castle Rock, Colo.-based company reported a net loss of $84.4 million, or $0.32 per share. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose to $61.2 million. More than half of that, $32.1 million, was stock compensation expense related to new grants under a long-term incentive program. The quarterly net loss also reflected a $76.4 million decrease in the fair value of its bitcoin holdings.

The Bitcoin halving in April, which reduced the reward miners receive for adding new blocks to the blockchain by 50%, reduced the number of bitcoins produced during the quarter. The company mined 844 BTC, 52% less than the previous second quarter.

The cost of mining Bitcoin jumped from $5,734 to $25,327 due to a 68% increase in the network’s hash rate. Hash rate is a measurement of the total computing power used to process transactions on the network. A higher hash rate means miners have to expend more power and incur higher costs to mine each BTC.

RIOT shares fell 0.3% in pre-market trading. Bitcoin lost 2.7% in the last 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) fell 4.5%.