Moscow. June 24. INTERFAX.RU – A sharp decline in the value of cryptocurrencies this year has put pressure on the shares of companies working in the field of digital currency mining, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Shares of American miners Riot Blockchain Inc. and TeraWulf Inc. since the beginning of the year, they have fallen in price by 78% and 89%, respectively, and the price of securities of Canadian Hut 8 Mining Corp. and Bitfarms Ltd collapsed by 79% and 71%, respectively.

The price of bitcoin has fallen by about 70% from its November highs to $20,000. As a result, North American mining companies have earned less than $20 million per day in the last week, according to Glassnode. In October last year, the average daily revenue was about $72 million.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that banks are less and less willing to do business with representatives of the cryptocurrency sector, which negatively affects their ability to pay for the purchase of new equipment.

According to Arcane Research analyst Yaran Mellerud, companies have to sell almost all the mined cryptocurrency in order to purchase powerful new computers and chips. According to his estimates, in January-April 2022, publicly traded miners sold about 30% of all bitcoins they mined, and in May the figure exceeded 100% – that is, companies had to sell digital assets from their reserves.