Hut 8’s Hashrate Soars 79% Amid $134M Bloodbath—Mining Arms Race Trumps Profitability Again
Bitcoin miner Hut 8 just flexed its operational muscle with a staggering 79% hashrate surge in Q1—while somehow managing to lose $134 million. Wall Street analysts are clutching their pearls, but crypto natives know the drill: stack sats now, worry about pesky ’accounting’ later.
The brutal math? More machines, more problems. Hut 8’s aggressive expansion comes as the halving squeezes margins industry-wide. Yet with Bitcoin hovering near all-time highs, these miners are playing the long game—or at least that’s what they’re telling their investors between funding rounds.
One hedge fund manager quipped: ’Turns out printing money does cost money after all.’ Meanwhile, the hashrate keeps climbing.
Hut 8 Manages 1,020 MW in Power, Eyes 2,600 MW Expansion
As of March 31, Hut 8 managed 1,020 megawatts of energy capacity, with rights to scale by another 2,600 MW.
Key investments included a major upgrade to the firm’s ASIC fleet and the launch of American Bitcoin, a new majority-owned subsidiary backed by members of Donald Trump’s family.
The subsidiary is positioning itself to become one of the world’s largest and most efficient pure-play Bitcoin miners while maintaining a strategic BTC reserve.
Hut 8’s leadership noted that American bitcoin may seek to raise additional capital through an IPO and will serve as a capital-efficient platform for expanding into high-performance computing.
“The streamlined capital allocation framework made possible by the American Bitcoin launch reinforces our ability to scale lower-cost-of-capital businesses,” Genoot added.
Today we announced our results for Q1 2025, a period of deliberate investment designed to unlock the potential of our development flywheel.
Highlights
– Deployed our upgraded ASIC fleet to end the quarter with 9.3 EH/s at approximately 20 J/TH
– Launched @AmericanBTC to… pic.twitter.com/JoEbWIuMhd
Looking ahead, the company remains focused on several infrastructure initiatives, including energizing the Vega data center, beginning work on the River Bend facility, and advancing utility-scale power development.
Genoot believes these steps will help Hut 8 generate near-term cash FLOW while laying the groundwork for long-term leadership in digital infrastructure.
Hut 8 shares were trading at $12.66 on Nasdaq after a modest 2.2% gain on the day, though the stock remains down over 38% year-to-date.
The update comes shortly after rival Core Scientific posted a $580 million quarterly profit, despite missing revenue estimates due to declining mining margins.
Bitcoin Mining’s Sustainable Energy Usage Rises to 52%
A recent study from Cambridge University shows that sustainable energy now powers 52.4% of Bitcoin mining, a significant increase from 37.6% reported in 2022.
According to the report, 42.6% of Bitcoin mining’s sustainable energy comes from renewables like wind and hydropower, while 9.8% is sourced from nuclear energy.
Natural gas has now overtaken coal as the largest energy contributor to Bitcoin mining, with usage rising to 38.2%, compared to 25% in 2022.
Coal’s share, meanwhile, has fallen sharply to 8.9% from 36.6%.
The United States became a global leader in Bitcoin mining following China’s 2021 crackdown on the crypto industry.
With cheap electricity and strong capital markets, American mining firms quickly gained dominance, and the election of pro-crypto President Donald Trump initially fueled Optimism for continued growth.
