Bitcoin Miner Riot Platforms' Second-Quarter Loss Widens to $84.4M as Costs Surge

• Riot attributes the increase in losses to selling, general and administrative expenses of $61.2 million compared with $41.4 a year ago.
• The bitcoin "halving", which cuts the reward miners receive for adding new blocks to the network, lower number of bitcoin that Riot produced during the quarter.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Riot Platforms (RIOT) said its second-quarter loss trebled from the year before as general running costs climbed 48%.

The Castle Rock, Colo.-based company posted a net loss of $84.4 million, or $0.32 per share. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose to $61.2 million. More than half the figure, $32.1 million, comprised stock compensation expenses related to new grants under a long-term incentive program. The net loss for the quarter also included a $76.4 million drop in the fair value of bitcoin it holds.

April's Bitcoin halving, which cuts the reward miners receive for adding new blocks to the blockchain by 50%, reduced the number of bitcoin Riot produced during the quarter. The company mined 844 BTC, 52% less than in the previous second quarter.

The cost to mine the bitcoin jumped to $25,327 from $5,734 due to a 68% increase in the network's hashrate. Hashrate is a measurement of the total computational power used to process transactions on the network. A higher hashrate means miners need to dispatch more power, incurring higher costs, in order to produce each BTC.

RIOT shares fell 0.3% in pre-market trading as of 09:35 UTC on Thursday. Bitcoin has dropped 2.7% in the past 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a measure of the broader crypto market, has lost 4.5%.

Read More: The Clock Has Ticked on Bitcoin's Post Halving Surge, 100 Days After the Latest Quadrennial Halving