CryptoQuant’s data on September 24 revealed that the public Bitcoin miners Core Scientific had an increase of 248% in YTD (year-to-date) returns. The data showed that Core Scientific was far ahead of the other two publicly traded Bitcoin miners, TeraWulf Inc. (WULF) and Iris Energy Limited (IREN). The competing firms recorded increases in returns of 96% and 10%, respectively.
Core Scientific reported on September 23 that it earned 12.3 self-mined BTC in 24 hours (starting September 22), 253.7 self-mined BTC month-to-date, 5,528 self-mined BTC year-to-date, and 38,079 self-mined BTC since January 2020.
According to the founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, Ki Young Ju, Core Scientific inked a 12-year contract with CoreWeave with the expectation of over $3.5B in initial term revenue.
Following the declaration of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2022, the Bitcoin miner re-emerged in January 2024 after Bitmain invested $54 million in the Bitcoin miner’s stock.
Core Scientific’s stock explodes as returns soar 248%
The CEO of CryptoQuant confirmed that the Bitcoin miner’s stock revenue had gained 248% since January 2024. Ju affirmed that Bitcoin hashrate dominance was slowly shifting to U.S. mining companies, with the U.S. pools managing 40% of the network. China led with 55% of the mining pools operated by relatively small miners against American institutional miners, said Ju.
Adam Sullivan, the CEO of Core Scientific, said on September 19 that the Bitcoin mining company was laser-focused on maximizing revenue in all scenarios through its cutting-edge proprietary software and flexible energy contracts. He claimed that the key drivers behind the recent Bitcoin halving had little impact on the miner’s cost-to-mine compared to other Bitcoin miners.
“We are a digital infrastructure company at heart, and that enabled us to be the largest #bitcoin mining company [in terms of MW and production] for the last 3 years.”
– Adam Sullivan
Sullivan explained that being a digital infrastructure company had enabled Core Scientific to become a leader in Bitcoin mining, and it was now positioning itself as an emerging leader in digital infrastructure to support AI computing.
Core Scientific’s partnerships and overlapping AI and crypto strategy
In January 2024, Core Scientific approved a restructuring plan that cut the company’s debt by $400 million as its shares were relisted on the Nasdaq. The Bitcoin miner also secured $55 million in a rights offering and an $80 million exit facility from its bondholders.
Speaking at CNBC’s ‘Fast Money,’ Sullivan disclosed that the miner’s objective in 2025 and 2026 was to become a leader in HPC (high-performance computing) and increase revenue through AI.
In August, Sullivan also told BNN Bloomberg that Core Scientific had risen from bankruptcy to multi-billion partnerships as part of its restructuring plan. The chief development officer at Core Scientific, Russell Cann, pointed out that Core Scientific stood out because not every Bitcoin miner could successfully run an AI data center despite some similarities in structure.
On July 10, Core Scientific announced one of the largest ASIC procurement agreements with Block Inc. to deploy Block’s 3nm ASIC mining chips. The agreement aims to decentralize bitcoin mining and contribute nearly 15 exahashes per second to the mining operations.
The Bitcoin miner also expanded into AI through a deal with CoreWeave, which was expected to add over $3.5 billion in revenue over 12 years.
