Bitcoin Miners Ditch Mining for AI and HPC Amidst High Production Costs
Bitcoin miners are shifting their focus from cryptocurrency mining to AI and high-performance computing (HPC) due to the increasing cost of production. According to the CoinShares' Q2 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report, it cost miners an average of $75,500 in cash to produce one coin in the second quarter. This is significantly higher than the June close of $58,400, less than half the record high in October 2025.
As a result, many miners are renting their power sites to AI and HPC customers, with AI computing earning about $1.5 million in yearly profit per megawatt of power, compared to $0.5 million for mining. This shift is changing what investors own when they buy mining stocks, with companies having signed AI or HPC contracts trading at an average 12.9 times expected sales for the next year.
Power is now the scarce resource, with at least 151 restrictions on data center development remaining in force across the U.S. and a backlog of 2,600 gigawatts of power projects waiting to connect to the grid. This has led to prices climbing for sites that already have power, with a $3.5 billion deal for three leased Northern Virginia AI facilities working out to about $27 million per megawatt.