While most of the public cryptocurrency miners are positioned to survive the supply shock of the Bitcoin halving, JPMorgan has named its top picks. "With the bitcoin halving on the horizon, we expect heightened volatility and trading volume in both bitcoin and mining stocks," Reginald Smith, an analyst at JPMorgan, said in a note this week.
The larger a miner's hash rate, the bigger revenue opportunity it has. Riot had a hash rate of 12.2 EH/s in the fourth quarter and could exit the year with a rate of 28.4 EH/s, by JPMorgan's estimates. Iris Energy started from 5.6 EH/s in the fourth quarter and is tracking for 16.4 EH/s at the end of this year. Smith also highlighted Riot's low power costs, noting that electricity is the single largest operating expense for the mining firms.