Bitcoin Miners Abandon Ship for Lucrative AI Contracts

A new analysis from digital asset manager CoinShares reveals that artificial intelligence infrastructure is generating roughly three times as much profit per megawatt as Bitcoin mining. The estimated annualized profit from AI and high-performance computing (HPC) stands at approximately $1.5 million per megawatt, compared to around $500,000 per MW from Bitcoin mining.

The figures are based on current industry economics and can change materially with Bitcoin prices, mining difficulty, electricity costs, and AI contract terms. This gap helps explain why several publicly listed Bitcoin miners are reallocating their resources toward AI workloads despite the recent recovery in Bitcoin prices.

Bitcoin miners faced challenging economics during the second quarter of 2026, with an average cash cost of producing one Bitcoin reaching approximately $75,500, while BTC ended the quarter at around $58,400. The hash price fell to an all-time monthly low of about $27.70 per petahash per second per day in June.

The transition to AI infrastructure is already underway, with CoinShares estimating that at least 35 EH/s of computing power will leave publicly listed Bitcoin miners by the end of 2026. This accounts for roughly 4.7% of the Bitcoin network's current hashrate. Several public miners have announced their intention to shift towards AI, including Keel, IREN, Cipher Digital, and TeraWulf.