Crypto glossary
Bitcoin mining stocks
Bitcoin mining stocks are shares of listed mining companies, which tend to move as a leveraged bet on bitcoin and depend on hashprice, costs and dilution.
Publicly traded miners, mostly listed on Nasdaq or in Canada, operate fleets of ASICs and sell or hold the bitcoin they produce. Their revenue depends on bitcoin's price, network hashrate and transaction fees, combined into the hashprice metric, while their costs are dominated by electricity, hardware and debt.
Because profits react more than proportionally to bitcoin moves, mining shares often rise faster than bitcoin in bull markets and fall harder in bear markets. Investors compare companies by realised hashrate, cost per coin mined, fleet efficiency in joules per terahash, power contracts and how much bitcoin they keep on the balance sheet.
Halvings cut revenue per block in half overnight, and miners finance growth by issuing shares and convertible debt, which dilutes holders. Operational risks include energy prices, regulatory changes and curtailment. Since 2024 many miners also earn income hosting AI and high-performance computing, which changes how they are valued.
Example
In a month when bitcoin rises 15%, a basket of listed miners gains 35%, but after the next halving the same shares drop sharply as revenue per terahash falls.