January surge strengthens short-term prospects for bitcoin mining shares, according to JPMorgan.

Mining company stocks increased last month, despite a decline in bitcoin prices, as storms disrupted the network hashrate and optimism around AI surged, according to the bank.

January’s uptrend supports a positive near-term outlook for bitcoin mining stocks, according to JPMorgan. (Shutterstock, modified by CoinDesk)

Key points:

• JPMorgan reported that U.S.-listed bitcoin miners gained $11 billion in market capitalization in January, outperforming bitcoin and stock indices.
• Winter storms reduced the network hashrate and difficulty, enhancing miner profitability even with lower BTC prices.
• Valuations continue to be high, trading at approximately three times the average block reward multiple post-2022, as noted by the bank.

Bitcoin BTC$76,073.52 mining stocks started 2026 robustly, supported by decreased network competition and renewed interest in high-performance computing (HPC), as stated in a report from Wall Street bank JPMorgan on Monday.

The bank observed that the 14 U.S.-listed bitcoin miners and data center operators it monitors concluded last month with a total market capitalization of $60 billion, reflecting a 23% increase month-over-month, significantly surpassing the S&P 500’s 1% rise.

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The surge was partly driven by the announcement that Riot Platforms established a HPC partnership with AMD at its 700-megawatt Rockdale site, highlighting miners’ efforts to diversify beyond bitcoin.

Confronting historically low margins following the 2024 halving, bitcoin miners are transitioning into digital infrastructure providers, converting power-intensive mining locations into AI-capable data centers to seek more stable, long-term revenue streams.

Simultaneously, valuations continued to rise. Analysts Reginald Smith and Charles Pearce indicated that mining stocks were trading at around 150% of the four-year block reward potential at year-end, approximately three times the average since 2022, emphasizing a widening gap between miner valuations and bitcoin’s market price.

From an operational standpoint, January provided some relief. Winter storms across the United States necessitated widespread shutdowns, causing the average network hashrate to decline by 6% month-over-month to 981 exahashes per second (EH/s), according to JPMorgan. The hashrate briefly fell to as low as 700 EH/s during the month, while mining difficulty dropped 5% from December and remained 10% below November’s peak.

The hashrate indicates the total combined computational power utilized to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain, serving as an indicator of competition within the sector and mining difficulty. It is quantified in exahashes per second.

This reduction in competition mitigated the impact of declining bitcoin prices. The analysts estimated that miners generated approximately $42,350 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue in January, a slight increase from December, while gross profit rose 24% to around $21,200 per EH/s as network efficiency improved. Nonetheless, profitability remains significantly lower than pre-halving figures, the bank noted.

Stock performance was largely favorable. Twelve out of the 14 miners monitored by the bank surpassed bitcoin’s 4% drop in January, with IREN (IREN) gaining 42% and Cango (CANG) declining 18%. Even after the increase, the combined valuation of the group is still about 15% below the highs recorded in October 2025.

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