Bitcoin Miners to Invest $3.6B in Infrastructure and Equipment by 2024

As of early 2024, publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have spent more than $3.6 billion on property, plant and equipment (PP&E).

This includes funding for mining hardware, data center upgrades, and other infrastructure needed to maintain and expand their operations.

Record income and expenses

According to a Nov. 28 newsletter from TheMinerMag, mining companies' spending on PP&E for the July-September 2024 period is the highest since Q1 2022, when they posted a record $1.246 billion.

In Q3 2024, companies paid $1.226 billion, just $20 million less than Q1 2022 numbers. CleanSpark has yet to release its financial report for that period, and analysts expect the Nevada-based miner's rising spending will allow the industry to set a new record for net PP&E spending in a single quarter.

BTC miners have invested about $3.49 billion in equipment and upgrades this year, $1.18 billion between January and March and $1.07 billion between April and June, in addition to the Q3 figure. This is nearly $900 million more than the sector's spending in 2022.

Hardware purchases control costs.

With investment growth of around $1.3 billion going into PP&E by 2023, the Bitcoin network hashrate will reach around 790 Executors per second (EH/s).

Moreover, the mining problem of the cryptocurrency also hit a new all-time high of 101.6 T on November 5, experts will probably go by at least another 2% in the coming days.

This means that mining operations must focus on efficiency and scale to remain competitive and profitable. Therefore, the majority of PP&E funds last year were invested in upgrading and expanding mining hardware.

According to pre-order data tracked by TheMinerMag between July 2023 and March 2024, companies have pledged more than $2 billion to purchase the latest BTC mining machines.

Offerings are expected to begin rolling out in September 2024, with China-based Bitmain securing most of the deals. However, delays in shipping the company's Antminer ASIC equipment to US-based BTC miners have sparked speculation that it could be linked to ongoing geopolitical issues. This includes an investigation into reported possible sanctions violations by Sofgo, the Chinese chipmaker associated with Bitmain co-founder Mikri Zhan.

If the connection happens, it could have serious consequences for the multi-billion dollar BTC mining sector, especially when the cryptocurrency threatens to breach the $100,000 milestone.