Canadian Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Bitfarms has been actively expanding its operations, reporting a 7.3% increase in mined BTC in September 2023 compared to the previous month. The company mined a total of 411 bitcoins in September, selling 362 of them for total proceeds of $9.5 million. As of Monday, Bitfarms still holds 703 BTC, valued at nearly $20 million.
The increase in mining production is attributed to the firm's ongoing installation of new miners and the full activation of its Argentina facility at Rio Cuarto, which now operates at 51 megawatt (MW). With these additions, Bitfarms' total operating capacity has reached 233 MW, marking a 24% increase so far in 2023.
In addition to expanding its operations, Bitfarms managed to increase its hashrate by 9% from 6.1 exahashes per second (EH/s) in September. This figure falls slightly short of the company's third quarter target of 6.3 EH/s, due to some electrical infrastructure delays at its Québec facility in Baie-Comeau.
Bitfarms, despite its efforts, has seen a declining trend in earnings per share and its revenue has been declining at an accelerating rate, according to InvestingPro Tips. The company has also been operating with a poor return on assets. These factors, coupled with weak gross profit margins, have resulted in poor returns on book equity for stockholders.
Even so, the company's stock price movements have been quite volatile, with the price falling significantly over the last three months. InvestingPro's real-time metrics show a -18.32% return on the company's stock price over the past month. The metrics also highlight that Bitfarms has a market cap of 321.89M USD and a negative P/E ratio of -1.88, indicating that the company was not profitable over the last twelve months.
Despite the significant growth in mining production, Bitfarms' mining pace is slightly lower than figures recorded last year. The amount of BTC mined last month is 14.6% lower than that of September 2022. Year-to-date, the firm has mined a total of 3,692 BTC, slightly less than the 3,733 BTC generated over the same period last year.
Bitfarms CEO Geoff Morphy stated that the company believes many of its best opportunities for growth will come from the next Bitcoin halving event expected to take place in April 2024. This event, which occurs once every four years, will reduce the Bitcoin miner block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, significantly increasing the costs of mining. Morphy emphasized the company's focus on infrastructure and balance sheet strength to provide the financial flexibility to move aggressively when growth conditions are optimal.
The news comes as Bitcoin's mining difficulty experienced a 2.7% month-over-month increase in September, with miners anticipating higher BTC prices. Some estimates suggest that BTC mining difficulty is set to decrease by 0.7% at its next automated readjustment on Monday.
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