Bitcoin Miners Abandon Mining as Funds Flow into AI and HPC Infrastructure
Bitcoin miners are increasingly exiting the mining business as funds flow into artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. According to recent reports, several listed bitcoin miners have effectively halted mining operations, shifting towards AI and HPC businesses instead.
The trend shows that valuation benchmarks for bitcoin miners are shifting from hashrate to power and data centre utilisation. Keel, a previously known as Bitfarms, is one of the companies that has stopped operating its mining sites in June and plans to dispose of its remaining 1,861 BTC by the end of the year.
Core Scientific, another major miner, paid $41.9 million to terminate a contract for next-generation 3-nanometre mining chips totalling about 15 exahash per second (EH/s) and is working to convert facilities to other uses.
The value of power used for bitcoin mining at some data centres has dropped significantly as they prepare to take on AI colocation tenants. Hyperscale Data, for example, signed a contract with a neocloud company in California worth over $1.2 billion over 10 years, and could expand to as much as $3 billion.
The regulatory environment is also putting pressure on miners to shift their businesses, with at least 225 measures in 30 U.S. states restricting or pausing data centre development.