February was a tough month for Bitcoin miners, with the stocks of major companies in the sector plummeting by 22%. According to a JPMorgan report, the decline was driven by falling cryptocurrency prices and the effects of the April halving.

The halving reduced block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, leading to a 46% drop in miners’ revenues and a 57% decline in gross profits. In February, as Bitcoin continued to lose value, profitability fell by another 9%.

Despite strong quarterly reports from Core Scientific, shares of Riot Platforms (RIOT), Bitdeer (BTDR), and Marathon Digital (MARA) dropped following the release of their financial results.

To offset losses, miners have started exploring new markets, including high-performance computing (HPC). Mining hardware is now being repurposed for artificial intelligence processing. However, the future of this sector remains uncertain— in January, China’s DeepSeek claimed its models could rival ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost, raising concerns over the long-term demand for data centers.

Nevertheless, JPMorgan notes that companies with strong AI exposure, such as Hut 8, remain more resilient. This offers hope that integration with the AI sector could help miners weather the current crisis.