Shares of the large-scale computing outfits that make Bitcoin work are once again outperforming the original cryptocurrency, as more pivot to hybrid models built around artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.<\/p>\n
Long-ago dubbed miners because of the perceived similarities to the mining of traditional commodities such as gold when creating Bitcoin, the companies have often been at the mercy of the volatile price swings experienced by the token. Two years ago, the sector benefitted at the initial start of the AI boom, only to see their share prices tumble the following year as mining profitability declined and competition increased.<\/p>\n
Even with the\u00a0crypto market carnage\u00a0over the past week, Bitcoin is still up about 14% in 2025, and within striking distance of the all-time high of almost $126,000 reached at the start of the month. Investors have stampeded into the token since the second Trump administration embraced a pro-crypto agenda.<\/p>\n
Yet, the biggest winners of this year\u2019s crypto comeback aren\u2019t Bitcoin holders but the miners themselves. A fund tracking listed mining firms has soared more than 150% year-to-date. Unlike during past cycles, when the miners would rally while Bitcoin was gaining, the companies are now being viewed for what they are becoming: tech infrastructure firms.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors are almost exclusively valuing Bitcoin miners for their HPC\/AI opportunities at this point,\u201d said John Todaro, analyst at\u00a0Needham & Co.\u00a0\u201cWe would say less than 10% of our conversations on miners are actually on Bitcoin and mining.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cipher Mining Inc. and IREN Ltd. exemplify the trend. Shares in the Nasdaq-listed firms have soared about 300% and 500%, respectively, this year as they pivot from pure Bitcoin mining to AI infrastructure. Earlier in 2025, Cipher signed a 10-year, roughly $3 billion colocation deal with Fluidstack \u2014 backed in part by Google \u2014 which guaranteed $1.4 billion in lease obligations in exchange for warrants representing a 5.4% stake. The agreement is one of the clearest signals yet that the line between crypto mining and AI computing is blurring.<\/p>\n
IREN, meanwhile, closed a $1 billion convertible notes offering on Wednesday. TeraWulf Inc., a US-based miner, also announced plans this week to issue $3.2 billion in senior secured notes to finance an expansion of its Lake Mariner data center in Barker, New York.<\/p>\n
Singapore-based Bitdeer Technologies Group, rallied almost 30% on Wednesday after detailing its plans to convert major mining sites into AI data centers, including its 570-megawatt facility in Clarington, Ohio. The company said that in a best-case scenario, full conversion could yield annualized revenue exceeding $2 billion by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Bitdeer, AI\/HPC is a complement to mining, not a replacement,\u201d said Jeff LaBerge, vice president of capital markets and strategy at Bitdeer. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue leading with efficiency in self-mining and selectively convert qualified sites to AI\/HPC where long-term returns are durable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pivot toward AI comes in the wake of last year\u2019s Bitcoin halving, which cut miner rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 Bitcoin. Since then, rising network difficulty and slowing transaction volumes have squeezed profit margins. Even Bitcoin\u2019s recent record highs have offered little relief to miners\u2019 unit economics.<\/p>\n
A firm\u2019s pivot to AI-HPC means that they will slow down or pause the expansion of the Bitcoin hashrate \u2014 a measure of the total mining capacity of the industry – since part of their power capacity is being reallocated, according to Wolfie Zhao, an analyst at TheMinerMag. He noted that Riot Platforms Inc., IREN, and Bitfarms have already signaled they won\u2019t expand hashrate in the near term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe focus is shifting from \u2018how much hashrate can we add\u2019 to \u2018how efficiently can we utilize our energy footprint,\u2019\u201d Zhao said. With Bitcoin\u2019s hashprice at record lows, the shift was inevitable, marking a phase where mining and computing now share \u201cthe same energy economy,\u201d he said.\u201cThe revenue per megawatt and EBITDA margins are far higher for HPC and AI colocation than for mining,\u201d said Needham\u2019s Todaro. With Bitcoin\u2019s volatility and halving risks, he added, \u201ccapital markets are rewarding AI-focused data centers with much higher multiples than traditional miners.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shares of the large-scale computing outfits that make Bitcoin work are once again outperforming the original cryptocurrency, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-210707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}