Bitcoin Pauses at $80,000 as Mining Firms Pivot to AI Infrastructure
Bitcoin's price has paused at the $80,000 resistance level as traders locked in gains following its largest weekly advance in over three years. The cryptocurrency traded near $78,300 after briefly pushing past $81,000.
The price remains up about 22% since Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced plans to double purchases of outstanding long-term debt, though buying momentum slowed ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's upcoming Jackson Hole speech.
Institutional demand continues to support Bitcoin through traditional investment vehicles. U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $314 million in net inflows on Tuesday, extending a five-day streak of daily inflows exceeding $300 million.
Meanwhile, major industry players such as TerraWulf and Core Scientific are shifting their data center capacity toward artificial intelligence workloads, leveraging their power access and experience to secure long-term contracts with AI developers like Anthropic. Riot Platforms signed a 20-year compute deal valued at $9 billion with Anthropic.
Wolfie Zhao, an industry analyst at The Energy Mag, points out that 10- to 20-year AI computer rentals give mining firms steady, long-term income, making it almost impossible to switch back to Bitcoin mining.