argo blockchain plc said thursday that it swung to a pretax loss for the first half due mostly due to a reduction in the fair value of digital currencies held on the balance sheet the londonlisted cryptocurrency miner said pretax loss was 369 million pounds 435 million compared with a pretax profit of gbp107 million for the first half of 2021 revenue fell to gbp267 million from gbp311 million in the yearprior period the company said this was mostly driven by a fall in bitcoin price and an increase in the global hashrateor computing power needed for to miningas well as associated network difficulty level the company said there has been a global macroeconomic pullback as central bankers and investors navigate inflation rising interest rates as well as the war in ukraine it added that this has hurt all financial assets including bitcoin and the equity of publiclytraded bitcoin miners argo is well positioned to weather the current downturn with its large and highly efficient mining infrastructure runway for growth and experienced management team which has successfully navigated the group through previous crypto winters chief executive peter wall said