Bitcoin miners inject $3.6 billion into infrastructure and equipment by 2024

Since the beginning of 2024, publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have collectively spent over $3.6 billion on property, plant and equipment (PP&E).

This includes money spent on mining hardware, data center upgrades, and other infrastructure needed to maintain and expand your operations.

Registration of incoming expenses

A Nov. 28 newsletter from TheMinerMag revealed that mining companies’ investments in PP&E between July and September 2024 were the highest since the first quarter of 2022, when they hit a record $1.246 billion.

In the third quarter of 2024, the companies paid $1.226 billion, just $20 million less than the numbers for the first quarter of 2022. CleanSpark has not yet released its financial report for this period, and analysts believe that adding the Nevada-based miner’s spending could allow the industry to set a new record for net PP&E spending in a single quarter.

BTC miners have invested about $3.49 billion in equipment and upgrades this year, including $1.18 billion between January and March and $1.07 billion between April and June, in addition to the third quarter figure. That’s already nearly $900 million more than the industry spent in all of 2022.

Hardware purchases dominate spending

The increase in investment after a subdued 2023, when companies invested about $1.3 billion in PP&E, coincides with the Bitcoin network’s hashrate rising to nearly 790 exahash per second (EH/s).

In addition, the cryptocurrency’s mining difficulty also reached a new all-time high of 101.6T on November 5, and experts predict that it will likely increase by at least another 2% in the coming days.

It means that mining operations will need to focus on efficiency and scale to remain competitive and profitable. As such, most of the PP&E money spent last year went towards upgrading and expanding mining hardware.

Pre-order data tracked by TheMinerMag between July 2023 and March 2024 shows that companies pledged more than $2 billion to buy the latest BTC mining machines.

Deliveries were expected to begin streaming in September 2024, with China-based Bitmain securing the majority of the offerings. However, delays in shipping the company’s Antminer ASIC devices to US-based BTC miners have led to speculation about possible links to ongoing geopolitical issues. This includes a reported investigation into potential sanctions violations by Sophgo, a Chinese chipmaker associated with Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan.

If a connection were made, it could have serious consequences for the multibillion-dollar BTC mining sector, especially at a time when the cryptocurrency is threatening to breach the $100,000 milestone.

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