70% of top Bitcoin miners are already using AI income to survive bear market
Seven of the top ten miners by hashrate report AI or high-performance computing initiatives already producing income, with the opposite three planning to observe swimsuit.
The shift pairs miners’ energized land and interconnections with contracted income from GPU clients, making a second line of enterprise that competes with operating ASICs at full energy.
AI partnerships redefine mining economics and investor focus
TeraWulf set the reference level after signing two 10-year internet hosting agreements with Fluidstack, totaling roughly 200 MW at Lake Mariner.
According to Barron’s, Google is backing a portion of Fluidstack’s lease obligations, up to roughly $ 1.8 billion, and has acquired warrants that would equate to roughly 8 % of TeraWulf. The disclosed deal math implies roughly $1.85 million per MW per 12 months of headline income over the time period, which many miners now use as a benchmark when courting AI tenants.
Core Scientific expanded a 12-year relationship with CoreWeave for about 70 MW of extra HPC capability, with operations focused for the second half of 2025. Bitdeer continues to function a industrial AI cloud primarily based on NVIDIA DGX programs, whereas Iris Energy stories an AI cloud enterprise operating on H100 and H200 GPUs.
Others are constructing the true property for the subsequent wave. CleanSpark mentioned on October 29 it secured 271 acres and about 285 MW of long-term energy in Texas for what it calls a next-generation AI and HPC campus. Marathon agreed in August to purchase 64 % of Exaion, an EDF subsidiary, to develop its international AI and HPC capabilities, with an choice to improve its stake to 75 % by 2027.
Riot has been assessing the conversion of roughly 600 MW at Corsicana for AI or HPC and has paused half of its mining growth, leading to a discount of year-end 2025 hashrate steerage from 46.7 EH/s to 38.4 EH/s. Bitfarms has employed consultants to conduct a feasibility research and has been advertising its websites to AI purchasers.
Cipher Mining is reported to have a multi-year Fluidstack association with a Google-linked lease dedication, though not all phrases are disclosed in a single main submitting. Abu Dhabi’s Phoenix Group has signaled plans to scale data-center capability past 1 GW, with an AI focus, and is exploring a U.S. itemizing to fund the growth.
The financial case rests on energy and predictability.
Using in the present day’s community context of about 1.08 to 1.10 ZH/s and 144 blocks per day with charges which have ranged from roughly 0.3 to 2.0 BTC per block, one MW of fashionable ASICs at about 17 J/TH interprets to about 0.059 EH/s of hashrate.
That share of the community earns roughly $ 1.0 to $ 1.6 million per MW per 12 months in gross mining income earlier than energy and opex, at a bitcoin worth of practically $104,000, in accordance to CoinWarz information for worth and hashrate. The midpoint of that vary, round 1.2 to 1.3 million {dollars}, trails the 1.85 million {dollars} per MW per 12 months implied by TeraWulf’s AI contracts.
Power worth, capital expenditure (capex), and utilization decide margins in both mannequin. Still, the contracted nature of AI internet hosting has turn out to be a key characteristic for fairness buyers searching for steadier money flows fairly than pure publicity to threat and costs.
Macro demand for data-center energy supplies the backdrop. McKinsey charts present U.S. data-center electrical energy consumption may attain about 606 TWh by 2030 as AI workloads scale. ERCOT initiatives report peak demand over the subsequent 5 years, with information facilities a main issue, as analyses point out roughly 35 GW of peak data-center load by 2035.
Utilities are adjusting, with American Electric Power growing its five-year capital plan to $ 72 billion as it really works via a pipeline of customer-backed contracts and greater than 190 GW of load requests in improvement, in accordance to Reuters. Those numbers align with miners’ pitch that their grid ties, substations, and land banks are now scarce inputs for AI campuses, not only for exahash.
This realignment adjustments what issues contained in the mining league desk.
A miner that directs new megawatts towards AI could report decrease headline hashrate development than a pure-play operation. Yet, its enterprise worth can enhance via contracted income, energy optionality, and longer-dated agreements.
Core Scientific’s additions with CoreWeave put a 12-year stamp on the mannequin. CleanSpark’s 285 MW plan and Marathon’s Exaion buy push miners towards proudly owning and working mixed-use campuses the place GPUs, miners, and typically customary colocation can share infrastructure. Riot’s public analysis of 600 MW at Corsicana demonstrates how rapidly the combo can change when a web site already has transformers, switchgear, water rights, and fiber infrastructure in place.
There are constraints. ERCOT interconnection timelines, fuel turbine availability for brand new peakers, and transformer lead instances all dictate how rapidly high-density halls could be energized. GPU provide stays a swing issue as Blackwell and successor elements ramp and as hyperscalers allocate stock to inner builds.
On the crypto facet, any shift in price regimes that materially lifts charges per block can shut some of the per-MW income hole between mining and AI internet hosting. A transfer of about 0.5 BTC per block in sustained common charges is price roughly $ 0.2 to $ 0.3 million per MW per 12 months in miner gross income at present worth ranges, primarily based on the easy share-of-network math above.
Investors are watching the composition of income, fairly than simply the exahash.
Contracted AI megawatts and {dollars} per MW per 12 months are turning into the brand new disclosures to monitor. The $1.5 to $2.0 million per MW per 12 months vary is rising as a sensible benchmark for high-density internet hosting within the U.S., with TeraWulf’s disclosed determine serving as a present reference.
Utility capex plans and interconnection queue updates are now as related to miner outlooks as ASIC supply schedules. As U.S. spot energy tightens, miners with already energized land, permitted pads, and spare substations can monetize that optionality sooner than greenfield entrants.
The worldwide angle provides heft. Marathon’s transfer with Exaion ties a U.S. miner to an EDF affiliate contained in the French energy system, aligning GPU internet hosting with state-adjacent power belongings.
Phoenix Group’s plan to scale within the Gulf, whereas weighing a U.S. itemizing, places sovereign energy economics into the combo for AI infrastructure.
Those buildings may pull extra miners into joint ventures the place utilities or power buyers anchor long-term contracts in return for capability rights, precedence interconnects, or fairness stakes.
For crypto fundamentals, the pivot may gradual the speed at which community hashrate expands via 2026 if materials parts of new energy are routed to GPUs as an alternative of ASICs. The community will nonetheless add hash as new websites come on-line and as older fleets refresh, but the slope can flatten relative to the final surge.
That wouldn’t cease capital from getting into mining, as high bitcoin costs and price spikes can nonetheless enhance returns; nevertheless, it makes the hashrate leaderboard a weaker proxy for fairness worth than it was in prior cycles.
Below is a concise snapshot of the place the most important listed miners stand in the present day. Status displays whether or not AI/HPC is already producing income or continues to be within the planning or analysis phases, primarily based on firm disclosures and mainstream reporting.
| Bitcoin Miner | Hashrate (EH/s) | % of Global Network | AI/HPC Involvement | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marathon Digital Holdings | 57.4 | 5.3% | Acquiring 64% of EDF’s Exaion to develop AI/HPC infrastructure | Revenue |
| CleanSpark | 50.0 | 4.6% | Building 285 MW AI/HPC data-centre campus in Texas (contracts beneath improvement) | Revenue |
| Iris Energy (IREN) | 45.4 | 4.2% | Operating renewable-powered GPU AI cloud clusters with H100/H200 programs | Revenue |
| Riot Platforms | 36.5 | 3.4% | Evaluating AI/HPC repurpose of 600 MW Corsicana facility (paused mining growth) | Planning |
| Bitdeer Technologies | 35.0 | 3.2% | Running industrial AI cloud service using NVIDIA DGX H100/H200 GPUs | Revenue |
| Cipher Mining | 23.6 | 2.2% | Reported multi-year AI data-centre leases (AWS & Fluidstack, ~$8.5 B whole) | Revenue |
| Core Scientific | 19.1 | 1.8% | Hosting AI/ML workloads for CoreWeave beneath 12-year contract (~70 MW) | Revenue |
| Bitfarms | 19.5 | 1.8% | Conducting HPC/AI conversion feasibility with Appleby Strategy Group | Planning |
| TeraWulf | 12.8 | 1.2% | Signed 10-year AI internet hosting contracts (> 200 MW, Google-backed Fluidstack) | Revenue |
| Phoenix Group* | 15.0 * | 1.9% * | Expanding towards 1 GW hybrid data-centre capability for AI/HPC by 2027 (deliberate) | Planning |
What to watch now could be easy and measurable. Track contracted AI megawatts and {dollars} per MW per 12 months in new filings, utility capex trajectories, and ERCOT load revisions, and thirty-day averages for bitcoin charges relative to the subsidy using sources like CoinWarz.
Those information factors will let you know how a lot mining energy shifts to GPUs, how rapidly campuses energize, and the way the per-MW income hole evolves. The largest miners are already executing on that playbook.
The publish 70% of top Bitcoin miners are already using AI income to survive bear market appeared first on CryptoSlate.
