TaoHash
247 posts
@taohash
Incentivizing and decentralizing Bitcoin hashrate on Bittensor: Subnet 14 — ξ — brought to you by @LatentHoldings
$MARA - Likely mining at a loss right now. They're spending ~$43/PH/s per day, but hashprice is ~$41.50. At present, likely paying more cash to mine BTC than the BTC is worth, despite having spent ~$1b on ASICs last year. These figures omit other cash expenses... R&D and taxes other than on income (used to be an SG&A expense, but they now break it out) and other write-offs. -------- Curiously, they are either over-reporting their hashrate (resulting in a lower self-reported hashcost), or their hashrate is not producing as much BTC as it "should" (bad luck, poor block construction, etc). They provide this table that shows their costs (excluding SG&A), from which you can infer the average daily hashrate: The math: $31.30 per PH/s per day, times 92 days, is $2,880/PH/s for the quarter. With $145,054 in costs, that comes to 50.37 EH/s. However, you can also infer the average daily hashrate from the amount of BTC mined. Eg, if you ran 1 EH/s on an FPPS, you'd have earned 45.04 BTC for the quarter. $MARA mined 2,115 BTC, so the "effective" hashrate they had was ~46.96 EH/s. Lower than 50.37 EH/s they claim. They mined less BTC than 50.37 EH/s would have. So.. bad luck, or their numbers or off, or they primarily mined during below-quarter-average hashprice conditions. Part of a consistent trend: It's possible I have some numbers wrong here -- but I doubled checked and the numbers and math seem right. Doesn't help that one of the last remaining pureplay miners stopped reporting average operational hashrate over a year ago. But, even when they did (2024 - Q1, Q2) the numbers didn't tie out. ------ As it pertains to "energized hashrate" vs the above "effective hashrate" -- here's how it's panning out for them: Leaving tons of revenue on the table. ------ What ultimately matters is the amount of BTC they mine and what it costs to do such. In that regard, refer to the first table provided. They truly suck at mining. ------ Lastly, it's been mind blowing listening to them recently. They seem to actually believe they are doing a good job, and they seem to think people will lap up anything they say... which is a lot. Anyone remember 2PIC? Dead. How about "Twin Turbo"? Not a treasury anymore: "In prior periods, we presented certain bitcoin yield metrics to illustrate trends in the growth of our bitcoin holdings. Beginning this quarter, these metrics are no longer presented, as management determined they are no longer meaningful given our decision to sell bitcoin from production to fund operations and our focus on the active management of our digital assets rather than passive bitcoin ownership." Also no comment on CTO being gone or not. (Isn't it material information if he is leaving or has left?) I get the sense that being the market cap leader for so long has deluded them into thinking "easy mode" will have lasted forever. Almost every sentence uttered is bullshit, inconsistent, contrary to their actual business strategy, or not remotely related to their bottom line. Of course, you might not know this because nobody has the balls (or opportunity) to grill them on this. What information is provided is sparse. Didn't even mention the debt situation... let's just say the early 2030's are not looking pretty for them if BTC doesn't cooperate. I expect that current management will have sailed off into the sunset by then. Fred and Salman have sold a combined $12.6m in shares since June 2024 -- voluntarily (eg, not for tax reasons). -------------- Ran out of images, but their EV is now ~$2.5b (if you assume all notes convert) or ~$3.0b if you assume the ones ITM or NTM convert, or ~$3.5b if you assume none of them convert. Seems quite rich for ~50EH/s of high-cost hashrate (with abysmal operating history) that pulled in $51m this quarter, and is pulling in $0 today. Then again, perhaps they find a way to make HPC and/or power generation work. I wouldn't trust them with a dollar of my capital.
