What happened
Given weakening cryptocurrency prices, now isn't the best time to be a crypto miner releasing a quarterly-earnings report. Unfortunately for Riot Platforms (RIOT 10.13%), a Bitcoin (BTC -0.84%) miner, this is the situation it found itself in on Thursday. Following its latest release, investors traded the stock down by almost 13%.
So what
Riot's first quarter saw the Bitcoin specialist earn just over $73 million in revenue, which was down from the nearly $80 million it booked in the same period of 2022. Not surprisingly, that decline was mainly due to the drop in Bitcoin's price; mining the high-profile cryptocurrency is Riot's core activity. During the quarter, Riot mined a total of 2,115 Bitcoin, up from the year-ago tally of 1,405.
As for profitability, Riot flipped to a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) loss of almost $56 million from a $36.6 million profit in the year-ago period. On a per-share, non-GAAP (adjusted) basis, however, the company was in the black at $0.04. Yet this too was worse than the Q1 2022 result -- a net profit of $0.10 per share.
Collectively, analysts tracking the stock were modeling just under $77 million on the top line and $0.15 in adjusted, per-share net loss.
Now what
In contrast to other companies that rise or fall depending on how they perform in relation to analyst projections, sentiment on Riot depends on the dynamics behind Bitcoin trading. This is a major reason for the stock's immediate post-earnings drop; although the company notched beats on the top and (especially) bottom lines, it's currently suffering from its heavy association with the declining cryptocurrency.
