Cipher Mining Profit: $31.6M, but Warrants Did the Work
Cipher Mining posted a $31.6 million profit for the third quarter, but it came from a $127.2 million non-cash gain on warrants, not from mining. The company, now styled Cipher Digital (NASDAQ: CIFR), released the numbers on November 2 in an 8-K filing with the SEC.
Cipher Mining profit: what the filing says
Net income was $31.6 million, against a $3.3 million loss a year earlier. Operating loss, however, was $71.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of about $10 million. The difference is a $127.2 million non-cash change in the fair value of a warrant liability.
Revenue was $26.7 million, down 62.8% from a year earlier. Bitcoin mining brought in $20.8 million. HPC leasing, meaning rented-out computing space for AI, brought in $5.9 million. That is the first lease revenue Cipher has recognised, after rent started at its Black Pearl site.
The AI pivot behind the Cipher Mining profit
Cipher says it agreed with an unnamed AI lab to extend the Barber Lake lease to 20 years. The amendment adds about $5.2 billion of rent and lifts total contracted revenue to about $9.1 billion. Those are the company’s own figures. Coverage from Crypto Briefing and KuCoin News matches the headline numbers. Neither changes the picture above.
So the plain read is this: a public miner is turning into a data-centre landlord. Mining still brought in $20.8 million to HPC’s $5.9 million this quarter, and more data halls are due online through year-end. How the mix shifts from here is our reading, not a forecast from Cipher.
Related: why bitcoin fell below $77,000. Our daily view sits on the bitcoin price prediction page.
Miner math: what the Cipher AI pivot means for your margin
Here is the live maths on November 3. Bitcoin is $77,026 and the network is 1029 EH/s, so hashprice is about $33.90 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.68 | -$3.02 | -$6.14 | 4.1c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.73 | -$1.18 | -$3.72 | 6.1c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.17 | -$1.00 | -$3.89 | 6.6c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $3.72 | $1.19 | -$2.18 | 9.4c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If public miners keep shifting power to AI and network hashrate drops 3%: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro rises from 6.1 to 6.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.18 to -$1.06.
The blunt answer for miners
Cipher’s profit tells you nothing about your machine. Your margin is bitcoin price, network hashrate and your power price. Hashrate sits near 1029 EH/s per mempool.space. If more listed miners redirect megawatts to AI, hashrate growth slows, and that helps everyone still hashing. It is a small effect, and it is not guaranteed.
We would not read this as a reason to buy or sell. Check the table against your own power price. If you are under water, see our we buy used miners page or the mining economics guides.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.