Argo, Stronghold, and Bit Digital Reduce Hashrate Post-Bitcoin Halving
Argo Blockchain, Stronghold Digital, and Bit Digital significantly reduced their hashrate in May. This occurred after Bitcoin’s recent halving event, which made older mining hardware unprofitable. Bitcoin’s average hashrate in May declined by 4.16%. However, Argo, Stronghold, and Bit Digital experienced more substantial drops, with realized proprietary hashrate decreases of 20.82%, 7.85%, and 7.57%, respectively, according to TheMinerMag.
Data shows that Argo’s hashrate fell from 2.29 EH/s in April to 1.81 EH/s in May. Stronghold’s hashrate dropped from 3.59 EH/s to 3.31 EH/s, while Bit Digital’s fell from 2.76 EH/s to 2.55 EH/s. These reductions indicate these companies unplugged or retired significant portions of their hardware following the halving event.
Other mining companies like HIVE, Cipher, Core Scientific, and Terawulf also reported declines in hashrate. However, their decreases were smaller than the network average due to ongoing hardware upgrades. For example, Terawulf faced temporary site issues at its Nautilus facility in early May, but expects to expand its operational capacity to 10 EH/s in June.
HIVE is optimizing efficiency by underclocking older miners while deploying new S21s. They aim to reach an interim target of 5.5 EH/s. Core Scientific has redeployed older miners in Kentucky and Texas, but these may be removed depending on Bitcoin’s economic conditions.
Despite these reductions, several large companies increased their hashrate in the first full month post-halving. They achieved this by improving operational uptime, trading hashrate for power credits or cloud mining revenue, and expanding installed fleet hashrate. Marathon, Riot, Bitdeer, Iris Energy, and CleanSpark are notable examples.
These trends highlight the dynamic nature of the mining industry post-halving, as companies adjust strategies to maintain profitability and operational efficiency.
