Bitfarms Ltd. (NASDAQ:BITF) reported a drop in its bitcoin mining production for February 2024, although its mining capacity continued to expand.
The cryptocurrency mining company said it mined 300 bitcoins last month, down 22 percent compared to the 385 bitcoins it produced in February 2023.
Bitfarms attributed the decline to variability in the bitcoin mining business and said its average daily production was 10.3 bitcoins in February, worth approximately $648,900 based on bitcoin’s price of around $63,000 at the end of the month.
Despite lower bitcoin output, Bitfarms increased its mining capacity in the past year. The company said it had 6.5 exahashes per second (EH/s) of hashrate online as of Feb. 29, up 38 percent from 4.7 EH/s a year earlier.
Hashrate refers to the total computing power deployed on a cryptocurrency network that miners use to validate transactions and compete for block rewards.
By expanding hashrate, Bitfarms is able to dedicate more resources to mining Bitcoin to offset market-related mining productivity changes. The company’s hashrate level has not changed since the end of January 2024.
“Even with hashrate growth of 38% year-over-year, Bitfarms’ production of 300 BTC was impacted by difficulty increases on the network and 29 days instead of 28 days,” said Emiliano Grodzki, CEO of Bitfarms.
With its existing equipment, Bitfarms is projected to produce over 3,000 bitcoins in 2024 if market conditions remain favorable, Grodzki added.
Bitfarms’ bitcoin treasury also grew in value due to price appreciation. The company was holding over 4,300 bitcoins valued at approximately $271 million as of Feb. 29. Bitcoin’s price rose about 11 percent last month.