Miners Turn to AI Amidst Bitcoin Downturn

Bitcoin's mining industry is facing one of its toughest stretches in years, with a nearly 300-day network contraction and major bankruptcies. The latest figures show that difficulty has fallen almost 20% from its peak, and miners have sold record amounts of Bitcoin.

In the midst of this downturn, some companies are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) as a new revenue stream. Bitdeer reported producing 990 BTC in June, up 388% year over year, while its AI cloud business generates approximately $76 million in annual recurring revenue with GPU utilization at 95%. CleanSpark has also expanded into data centers, signing a 20-year lease with an unnamed investment-grade technology company covering 175 MW at its Sandersville, Georgia campus.

Meanwhile, Hut 8 signed a second 15-year lease for 352 MW at its Beacon Point campus in Texas, lifting that campus's base-term contract value to $19.6 billion and pushing Hut 8's total contracted AI portfolio to $26.6 billion. Core Scientific followed with an AMD partnership anchored by 15-year agreements covering about 530 MW, bringing its total leased customer capacity to roughly 1.1 GW.