BitNile Q2 earnings hurt by slump in lending, trading revenue amid bitcoin drop

BitNile (NYSE:NILE) worse-than-forecasted Q2 results Tuesday reflected a dent in its lending and trading revenue from a year before amid a slump in the price of bitcoin (BTC-USD). Looking forward, "we expect that our investment in SMC and our cryptocurrency mining operations will contribute to revenue growth above the current $100 million annualized revenue run rate and improved profitability in future periods,” said CFO Kenneth S. Cragun. EPS of -$0.09 at June 30 fell short of the average analyst estimate of $-0.01 and dropped from $0.83 in the year-ago quarter. Similarly, Q2 revenue of $17.4M missed the consensus of $28.8M and slid from $62.1M a year before. Crypto mining revenue for Q2 was $4.0M compared with $0.3M in Q2 2021. Hotel operations revenue for Q2 jumped to $4.0M from zero at June 30, 2021. And revenue from lending and trading activities was $0.9M in Q2, down from $53.3M in Q2 of last year, when the company recorded approximately $40M in unrealized gains from its investment in Alzamend Neuro (ALZN). YTD, BitNile (NILE) has mined a total of ~360 bitcoins (BTC-USD). As of August 22, the company held ~240 bitcoins and currently has no plans to sell, it said. Earlier, BitNile GAAP EPS of -$0.09, revenue of $17.36M.