The eleventh edition of OrionX's CryptoSuper500 list, marking its fifth anniversary. The list recognizes cryptocurrency mining as a form of supercomputing application, tracks the top mining companies and pools, and offers a snapshot of the cryptocurrency industry. The CryptoSuper500 was developed by Dr. Stephen Perrenod, OrionX Partner and noted crypto analyst who has also created a top-ranking Bitcoin evaluation model and elucidated the concept of the "blockchain calendar"

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November 2023
Stephen Perrenod
CryptoSuper 500 – Eleventh List
Top Cryptocurrency Supercomputers
Bitcoin Mining Entering the Zettahash Era
Five Years of Coverage
EMBARGOED until 15 November 2023

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Digital Money or
Digital Property
Store of value
Safe?
Unit of account
Supply?
Medium of exchange
Stable?
Money 3.0 is:
Money in the Internet
“Money has become
information. Bitcoin is energy
securely encapsulated as
information. Electrons to
eternal bits.” - @moneyordebt
a 500-year advance in accounting with
triple-entry ledgers on a timechain
Money 3.0

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✦ Bitcoin and cryptocurrency represents technology for Money
3.0
– 0.x – decentralized: shells, beads, centralized: Yap rai stones
– 1.0 – decentralized ownership but state minting: gold and silver coins
– 2.0 – centralized: national fiat currencies
– 3.0 – Decentralized digital Money stored in, sent across the Internet
– Some might say cryptocurrencies are simply digital assets
✦ Most of the current 24,000+ coins will prove to be worthless in
the long run, the distribution of market cap falls off very
steeply (power law index -1.57 of the ranking)
✦ Very few use Proof of Work, only 6 of those have significant
market cap
✦ Surprise: your Bitcoin is not in your hardware wallet or mobile
wallet or paper wallet. That just holds the keys.
OrionX position
Money 3.0

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▪ It’s not either/or with blockchain and bitcoin, it’s both
▪ They are each layers in an integrated stack
▪ Blockchain (or timechain) is the triple entry ledger of
chained transaction blocks: sender wallet, blockchain,
receiver wallet
▪ A consensus algorithm (e.g. Nakamoto) that enforces
security and prevents double spending is required:
Mining, it also enforces a monetary policy
▪ An incentive is required to cause the algorithm to be
computed and transactions added to the chain:
Cryptocurrency/Coin
▪ Smart contracts (ordinals, BRC-20, etc.) and second
layer chains extend the functionality and scaling for
fast, small transactions
Blockchain or Bitcoin? Gold, Fiat or Bitcoin?
Table 1. Advances in monetary technology. Aristotle defined the first four attributes required for
money over two millennia ago. We have added Fungibility “one is as good as another” to the
table. Bitcoin is private, global money on a decentralized, highly replicated leger.
Monetary Technology Advances

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Bitcoin is a major asset:
Market Cap, Assets over $0.4 Trillion
CompaniesMarketCap.com
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Table 2. Bitcoin is a $0.66 Trillion asset. The only
other assets with larger market caps are gold and
silver, 7 trillion-dollar class publicly traded
American companies, and Saudi Aramco. Since
the last list in May 2023, it passed Tesla. From
companiesmarketcap.com

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CryptoSuper
Methodology
✦ We only consider Reusable Proof of Work mined (minted) coins, since they are
the only ones using significant supercomputing power
– Non-mined coins usually use Proof of Stake, Pre-mining (“air drop”), or some Byzantine Fault
Tolerant algorithm. They either start with mining or an air drop
✦ The mining protocols and hash rates vary in very large degree between coins
– Total Hashrate for Bitcoin is about 5000 Exahash/s and other top coins are mostly in the
Terahash/s domain, considerably less
✦ Most RPOW coins require ASICs to be profitably mined, GPU mining still possible
with some
✦ We compare mining pools by using the Economic value of coins produced per
year = number of blocks mined x number of coins per block x price per coin and
adding transaction fee revenue
– Pools are aggregators of many sources of hash rate including their own, other businesses,
and individual miners. They act as brokers to share collective rewards in proportion to
hashrate contributed to a pool, for modest fees
✦ We consider the top 12 operating pools for coins producing over ¼ $ billion per
annum, there are only two: Bitcoin and Dogecoin
✦ Publicly traded, VC-funded Bitcoin mining startups are increasingly important and
responsible for 20% of Bitcoin production, primarily in N. America, filling the
vacuum left by Chinese ‘shutdown’ of mining

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Great Chinese
Mining
Shutdown
✦ The US is now the largest provider of Bitcoin mining power with a 38%
share as of January 2022, following the Great Chinese Mining Shutdown
of mid-2021.
✦ Rumors came out in late May 2021 about a Chinese crypto mining
shutdown. This time it was serious. The ban rolled out province by
province in the key mining provinces of Inner Mongolia, XinJiang, and
Sichuan. The big blow came on June 19.
✦ Global hashrate has now exceeded prior high, miners in China sold or
relocated many of their mining rigs. Some mining has restarted,
presumably unregulated, such that China is #2 provider with 21% share
(as of January 2022), others include Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada
✦ These five countries provide ~ ¾ of all Bitcoin mining hash rate.
✦ This data comes from the Centre for Alternative Finance, U. Cambridge,
based on monitoring four of the largest Bitcoin pools.
✦ Why did China ban mining?
1. limit capital flight
2. control electricity usage
3. better impose regulation and taxes if the ban is relaxed in the future
4. make space for the central bank digital Yuan e-CNY <—- the real
reason

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✦ A number of publicly traded
Bitcoin mining companies have
listed shares, these have market
caps at or above ~ $200 million
and produce 20% of all Bitcoin
✦ 2022 was a tough year for miners,
many had to raise capital or sell
assets but the price recovery in
2023 and higher fees have
boosted profitability
✦ Most are HQ’d in the US and
Canada, also UK, Australia
✦ Data from company web sites and
companiesmarketcap.com,
10/28/23
Publicly traded
Bitcoin Mining
Companies
✦
Table 3. The top publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies, some of these companies have other business lines, such as AI/data center hosting, most
are pure plays. In general, these are new businesses with significant venture capital invested and large capital expenses devoted to ramping up
hashrate with new mining rigs, so although they may have good operating margins on mining most are not profitable. Many of these are also keeping
much of the Bitcoin they mine in their treasuries, collectively over $1 billion in value. Data from companiesmarketcap.com and company web sites.
Company
Market Cap
$Million
Locations
Stock
Price $
Hash Rate installed
by year end
Exahashes/sec
Bitcoin Held in
Treasury
Daily
Bitcoin
mined
Riot Blockchain 2,110 US 10.67 12.5 7,327 12.1
Marathon Digital 2,060 US, UAE 9.76 23.1 13,111 32.5
Cipher Mining 780 US 3.14 7.2 518 13.5
Clean Spark 710 US 4.70 9 1,194 21
Hut8 Mining 510 Canada 2.29 2.6 9,366 3.7
Bitdeer
Technologies
340
US, Bhutan,
Norway
3.10 8.7 0 16.1
Bitfarms 330
Canada, US,
ArgentinaParag
uay
1.21 6.3 703 13.7
Canaan 320 US, Kazakhstan 1.93 2.0 1,125 3
HIVE Blockchain 290
Canada,
Sweden, Iceland
3.41 3.6 2,332 9.2
TeraWulf 280 US 1.25 7.9 N/A 11.0
Core Scientific 260 US 0.70 15.1 1,914 32.1
Iris Energy 230 Canada, US 3.50 5.5
N/A
14
Totals 8,220 103.5 37,590 182

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Supercomputing for decentralized monetary network
Cryptocurrency
Mining is Green
Supercomputing
✦ Method: We estimate the annual economic value of mined crypto, only Proof of Work coins
✦ Bitcoin market cap $665 billion (Oct. 28, 2022, 19.5 million BTC at $34,091)
✦ Bitcoin daily production = $31 million (miners also receive about $1 million in transaction fees)
– money supply inflation under 1.8%, will cut in half to 0.8% in April, 2024
– 24 hours x 6 blocks per hour x 6.25 coins x $34,091
✦ Annual production run rate, Bitcoin, about $11 billion
✦ Ethereum #2 by market cap at $214 billion, has abandoned Reusable POW in late 2022 and moved to
Proof of Stake; it is no longer a mined coin or supercomputing application; large owners collect yield
by staking
✦ Top Mining Pools produce revenue of $11.8 billion annually across top 2 mined coins, including both
new coins and transaction fees. Very little revenue from the next few proof of work coins at current
prices
✦ Bitcoin mining is cleaner than average global use of energy; also, Bitcoin, unlike most electricity
outputs, is not consumption, it is production that creates permanent value (mostly rising), only 3%
goes to transaction fees, 97% to new economic value creation
✦ The Bitcoin Mining Council estimates that 60% the industry’s electricity inputs are from sustainable
sources including nuclear, based on a survey of their miners representing 45% of all Bitcoin hashrate.
They report that Bitcoin mining uses just 0.16% of global energy and is responsible for only 0.11% of
CO2 emissions
Bitcoin energy inputs > 50% green
Bitcoin only 1/900 of all CO2e, says
Bitcoin Mining Council

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CryptoSuper
Mining Trends
✦ Bitcoin dominance for mining (minting) now strongly established; Dogecoin
very distant second since Ethereum departed the field
✦ A dozen pools broker (not mine) most of $12 billion worth of value, almost all
Bitcoin, and about $1 billion of which is transaction fees
✦ Ever faster mining hardware, including liquid cooling; new highs in global
hashrate, rising about 50% per year
✦ North American dominance, public companies as major players have
increased to 1/5 of all Bitcoin production during 2023
✦ 2023 has seen much higher prices and miner margins
✦ The electrical input has trended toward increasingly green, some public
companies have set carbon neutrality goals
✦ Some geographies are restricting electricity access but Bitcoin mining acts
as a load balancer for utility operators

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Five Year Review
since Nov. 2018
Attribute Nov. 2018 Nov. 2023
Compound annual
growth rate, past 5 yrs.
Coins making cut for
CryptoSuper report
Bitcoin, Ethereum,
Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash,
Monero
Bitcoin, Dogecoin Consolidation
Number of different
cryptocurrencies
2000
9000 active, over 20,000
total
Majority abandoned, or
worthless
Bitcoin Market
Capitalization
$111 billion $665 billion 43%
Bitcoin Price $6,334 $34,091 40%
Bitcoin annual
production $ run rate
$4.2 billion $11.2 billion 22%
Bitcoin Hash Rate
Exahash/s 57 518 56%
Cryptocurrency Market
Cap $220 billion $1250 billion 42%
Top cryptos annual
mining production $
$5.6 billion $11.6 billion 16%
We dropped from 6 to 2 coins,
despite the 10-fold increase in the
number of cryptos
Bitcoin price has grown 40%
compounded annually
Bitcoin hash rate has grown over 50%
compounded
Even with Ethereum dropping out,
(and it once reached half of the value
of production), the mining
production has grown to $12 billion
Table 4. Key attributes of Bitcoin and major cryptocurrencies, comparing the first CryptoSuper report in 2018
with this report 5 years later. Recent data is as of 28 October 2023. Bitcoin has been growing in value at a
Moore’s law-like rate, and its supercomputing crypto hashing power has been growing faster than Moore’s law.

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Top Proof of Work Coins
Mining Rigs
Largest Pool Operators
Summary Tables

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✦ These 6 coins produce over
$12 billion of annual economic
value (AEV)
✦ Bitcoin has almost all the value
at $11.2 billion, Dogecoin is the
clear #2 as Ethereum has
dropped out of the race.
Transaction fees not included
here.
✦ Only BTC and DOGE have
production over $100 million
✦ Bitcoin has 500 Exahashes/sec
of computer power,
approaching Zettascale
Top Six Proof-of-
Work Coins
✦
Table 5. The first and second column give the coin name and its cryptographic hash algorithm. The
next two columns give the nominal block time and the block subsidy received by a miner each
block. The fifth Column gives the recent (10/28/23) price for the coin, and the last two columns
provide the hash rate and the units for the hash rate. Only Bitcoin is in the 100s of Exahashes/sec
range, and as a result of that and first mover advantage, nearly all the economic value is in Bitcoin.
Coin
Market
Cap (B$)
Total hash
rate and
Algorithm
Annual
Production rate
$B (nominal)
Current Supply
(millions)
Max Supply
(millions)
Bitcoin 665
479 Exa,
SHA-256
11.20 19.52 21
Dogecoin 9.69
716 Tera,
Scrypt
0.42 141,450 infinite
Litecoin 5.00
784 Tera,
Scrypt
0.09 73.77 84
Bitcoin
Cash
4.73
2.52
Exa, SHA-
256
0.08 19.53 21
Monero 2.97
2.34 Giga,
Random X
0.03 18.35 Infinite
Ethereum
Classic
2.33
154 Tera,
ETCHash
0.10 143.55 210.7

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✦ These are 12 of the fastest
Bitcoin mining rigs on the
market, from the three largest
vendors.
✦ The table shows hashrate,
electricity required, and
operating profit at 6 cents per
kilowatt-hour
✦ Typical hashrates are over 150
TH/s and operating profit
several dollar a day per
machine. Energy consumption
3 kW or higher (especially
hydro models)
✦ This table was produced in
October 2023
Top Mining Rigs
Table 6. Some popular Bitcoin mining rig parameters of hash rate, power consumption, and estimated
gross profitability. Operating revenue after electricity costs only, ignoring equipment capital amortization, is
calculated using 6 cents per kWh. Several models are announced in advance of release in early 2024.
Source: asicminervalue.com

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✦ Top 12 Bitcoin Mining
Operators of 16 pools
✦ Pools are not mining farms,
they are brokers of hash rate
for a modest fee, 1 to 4%
typical
✦ Miners, large and small,
typically choose to direct their
hashrate to a pool for
efficiency and for predictable
payouts
✦ It is relatively easy for a miner
to switch from one pool to
another
✦ We also list the host country
(Global typically are Chinese
pools that relocated or hide
their location)
✦ These top pools are
responsible for 98% of the
value creation
Largest
Pool
Operators
Table 7. Top mining pools by value using Bitccoin and Dogecoin prices as of 10/28/23.
Transaction fees add 3% (last 90-day average) on top of Bitcoin’s block subsidy reward.
There has been substantial consolidation since Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake.
Pool Country Bitcoin AEV
($M)
Dogecoin
AEV ($M)
Total $M
Foundry Digital USA 3,460 0 3,460
AntPool Global 3,146 48 3194
ViaBTC USA 1,328 115 1443
F2Pool Global 1,235 72 1307
Binance USA 827 0 827
Marapool N/A 548 0 548
Luxor Tech USA 245 0 245
BTCdotcom Global 221 0 221
Braiins Global 163 0 163
SBI Crypto Japan 140 0 140
Poolin USA 105 14 119
UltimusPool USA 105 0 105
Top 12 operators 11,523 249 11,771
All Mining 11,651 370 12,021

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November 2023
Stephen Perrenod
OrionX.net/research
Thank you!

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References
✦ https://21lessons.com/ - by Gigi, free online book on Bitcoin
✦ https://www.asicminervalue.com/ - list of top mining rigs and
profitability
✦ https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/bitcoin-mining-electricity-mix-
increased-to-59-5-sustainable-in-q2-2022/ - Bitcoin Mining
Council estimate of ‘greenness’ of electricity input
✦ Broken Money, Lyn Alden 2023, Timestamp Press
✦ https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/great-power-network-
competition-bitcoin - Matthew Pines 2023, “Great Power
Network Competition and Bitcoin”
✦ https://ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci - Cambridge Centre for Alternative
Finance Bitcoin energy statistics
✦ https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/dollar-worlds-reserve-currency
- Council on Foreign Relations, 2023. Discusses why the dollar
remains the world’s reserve currency for the foreseeable future.
✦ CoinMarketCap.com - market cap for most cryptocurrencies
✦ coinwarz.com - profit margins for Bitcoin mining hardware
✦ companiesmarketcap.com - market prices and capitalization for
largest companies and gold, silver, Bitcoin
✦ https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2023/html/ecb.pr23101
8~111a014ae7.en.html ECB statement on CBDC possibility
✦ https://www.educative.io/answers/what-are-the-different-steps-
in-sha-256 - SHA-256 algorithm details
✦ https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/global-electricity-
review-2023/ - Electricity review 2023 from Ember
✦ https://studio.glassnode.com/dashboards/btc-miners -
Glassnode, mining metrics
✦ https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100314/why-do-
bitcoins-have-value.asp - Why does Bitcoin have value?
✦ https://medium.com/the-capital/aristotle-would-prefer-bitcoin-
f0f825f87d3f - Aristotle would approve of Bitcoin
✦ https://medium.com/the-capital/bitcoin-and-the-circular-
economy-f1a4db39480c – Bitcoin as a circular economy asset
✦ https://medium.com/@cryptoassets0417/tenth-cryptosuper500-
report-72f66ee20850 - Tenth CryptoSuper 500 report June
2023
✦ Miningpoolstats.stream - tracks hash rate for mined coins and
larger mining pools
✦ https://www.educative.io/answers/what-are-the-different-steps-
in-sha-256 - SHA-256 algorithm details
✦ Softwar, Jason Lowery 2023, MIT master’s thesis, no longer
available on Amazon due to Pentagon embargo