The profitability of mining Bitcoin (BTC) declined 7.4% in March as the price of the largest cryptocurrency steadily fell, says U.S. investment bank Jefferies Financial Group (JEF).
The drop was due to a 11.2% decline in the average price of Bitcoin, and a 9.1% drop in transaction fees, according to a monthly report published by Jefferies.
U.S.-listed miners produced 3,534 Bitcoin in March, up from 3,002 in February.
Miner MARA Holdings (MARA) produced the most Bitcoin in March, with 829 tokens minted, followed by CleanSpark (CLSK) with 706 BTC.
MARA Holdings also claims to have had the largest installed hashrate at 54.3 exahashes per second, with CleanSpark the second largest at 42.4, says the report.
Looking ahead to April, Jefferies noted in its report that Bitcoin’s price is unchanged this month while the benchmark S&P 500 index is down 6%.
U.S. dollar weakness may be helping to support Bitcoin’s price currently and could be responsible for some of April’s outperformance, noted Jefferies.
Bitcoin is currently trading at $85,500 U.S. per digital token, down 9% on the year.
