Cryptocurrency miners are spending heavily on the newest technology to earn more bitcoins, trying to gain market share and squeeze out rivals ahead of a halving of their rewards in around four months’ time.

Miners listed on the world’s stock exchanges have this month committed to spending around $600mn on buying new chips and servers that are the keystone of the digital ledger underlying bitcoin, according to The Miner Mag, an industry data provider. The December amount is nearly half of the $1.3bn total committed for the year.

The burst of spending comes despite miners having suffered heavy losses in the 2022 crypto market crash. They are now trying to profit from the soaring price of bitcoin, which has surged to an 18-month high of more than $44,000.