According to Woofun AI, American Bitcoin (ABTC.US)'s quarterly earnings report on Wednesday showed a very confusing financial picture: although the company announced net profit of $126 million, with earnings per share as high as $1.73 billion, far exceeding analysts' expectations of $0.26 billion, this impressive figure is mainly due to the $197.3 million non-cash income from its BTC holdings. If this portion of the book surplus were to be divested, the company would actually face operating losses of approximately $5.5 million and recorded a huge loss of 64.3 million dollars in the derivatives business.
This divergence between 'paper wealth' and underlying business fundamentals, against the backdrop of Bitcoin's price falling to $76,119 at 8:50 p.m. UTC (a 24-hour drop of 5%), raised deep questions in the market about the sustainability of its long-term strategy. At the close of trading on Thursday, American Bitcoin (ABTC.US) shares fell about 15% to close at $5.31, reflecting the shaky confidence of investors in the profitability of the pure mining model.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, the core mining business of American Bitcoin (ABTC.US) is being squeezed by both cost erosion and declining efficiency. Mining revenue for the quarter was $63.4 million, down 5.5% from the previous quarter, and below analysts' expectations of $74.35 million, a gap of nearly 15%.
Meanwhile, the cost of each BTC mined increased by about 15% to $42,100, resulting in gross mining profits shrinking to $25.8 million from $33 million in the previous quarter, and mining margins also falling from 49% to 41%. In terms of output, the company mined 891 BTC this quarter, down from 932 in the previous three months. CEO Mike Ho argued in an earnings announcement that the company continued to engage in the BTC mining business at a level below the spot price despite seasonal power cost pressure.
However, this logic of 'mining below market price' has not been fully bought by the market. David Gamble, founder of Enigma Holdings, an asset management company that focuses on BTC mining and AI infrastructure construction, pointed out that mining below market prices does not necessarily create value for shareholders, especially when mining difficulty continues to increase and companies need to continuously invest in more efficient technology to maintain competitiveness, and the long-term sustainability of its fund-raising strategy is questionable.
Notably, although revenue remained essentially flat year over year (down slightly from $64.2 million to $63.4 million in the same period), net profit surged from $3.5 million to $126 million. This large contrast further confirms the non-operating nature of the source of profit.
The deeper rift in the industry lies in differences in strategic paths. While American Bitcoin (ABTC.US) continues to expand its BTC reserves — by the end of September, its BTC holdings surged from 3,418 a year ago to 8,427 — its rivals Riot Platforms (RIOT.US), MARA Holdings (MARA.US), and Core Scientific (CORZ.US) have turned to the field of artificial intelligence to seek new revenue growth point. David Gamble emphasized that the industry's real competitive advantage is shifting to energy infrastructure, and the key indicator is no longer the scale of computing power deployment or BTC output, but the ability to control power resources. BTC mining companies and AI data centers are competing for the same power supply, and in some scenarios, AI data centers may be more profitable.
However, the transformation is not seamless. Gamble warned that existing mining facilities cannot be directly converted into AI-related businesses, and that equipment depreciation, replacement costs, financing costs, and opportunity costs of investing capital in other fields must be considered. This high threshold for structural transformation makes American Bitcoin (ABTC.US)'s adherence seem more and more isolated, and also reveals the difficult balance between energy arbitrage and monetization of computing power for traditional mining companies.
Judging from trend research, the financial report of American Bitcoin (ABTC.US) is not only a financial disclosure of a single company, but also a microcosm of the BTC mining industry sandwiched between the post-halving cycle and the explosion of demand for AI computing power. As the rigidity of electricity costs rises and the mining difficulty curve becomes steeper, the model of simply relying on BTC price fluctuations to obtain non-cash benefits is difficult to conceal the fragility of the operational level. Competitors' leaning towards AI infrastructure indicates that the industry's valuation logic is being restructured from 'computing power scale' to 'energy efficiency and diversified applications'. For companies that still adhere to a pure mining strategy, how to cope with reduced profit margins and capital expenditure pressures while maintaining the growth of BTC reserves will be a key variable in determining their living space.
This fragmentation indicates that in the future, competition in the BTC mining industry will no longer be limited to on-chain output, but will extend to the underlying game of energy infrastructure.