70% of top Bitcoin miners are already using AI income to survive bear market

Seven of the highest ten miners by hashrate report AI or high-performance computing initiatives already producing income, with the opposite three planning to comply with go well with.

The shift pairs miners’ energized land and interconnections with contracted income from GPU prospects, 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.

In accordance with Barron’s, Google is backing a portion of Fluidstack’s lease obligations, as much as roughly $ 1.8 billion, and has obtained warrants that would equate to roughly 8 p.c 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 further HPC capability, with operations focused for the second half of 2025. Bitdeer continues to function a industrial AI cloud based mostly on NVIDIA DGX programs, whereas Iris Vitality studies an AI cloud enterprise operating on H100 and H200 GPUs.

Others are constructing the true property for the following 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 accumulate 64 p.c of Exaion, an EDF subsidiary, to broaden its world AI and HPC capabilities, with an choice to extend its stake to 75 p.c by 2027.

Riot has been assessing the conversion of roughly 600 MW at Corsicana for AI or HPC and has paused a part of its mining enlargement, leading to a discount of year-end 2025 hashrate steering 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 shoppers.

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 major 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 enlargement.

The financial case rests on energy and predictability.

Utilizing at present’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 contemporary 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 value of practically $104,000, in response to CoinWarz information for value 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.

Energy value, capital expenditure (capex), and utilization decide margins in both mannequin. Nonetheless, the contracted nature of AI internet hosting has grow to be a key function for fairness buyers in search of steadier money flows quite than pure publicity to danger and charges.

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 file peak demand over the following 5 years, with information facilities a major issue, as analyses point out roughly 35 GW of peak data-center load by 2035.

Utilities are adjusting, with American Electrical Energy rising its five-year capital plan to $ 72 billion as it really works by a pipeline of customer-backed contracts and greater than 190 GW of load requests in growth, in response to Reuters. These numbers align with miners’ pitch that their grid ties, substations, and land banks are actually 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 file decrease headline hashrate progress than a pure-play operation. But, its enterprise worth can enhance by 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 commonplace colocation can share infrastructure. Riot’s public analysis of 600 MW at Corsicana demonstrates how shortly the combo can change when a website already has transformers, switchgear, water rights, and fiber infrastructure in place.

There are constraints. ERCOT interconnection timelines, fuel turbine availability for brand spanking new peakers, and transformer lead instances all dictate how shortly high-density halls might be energized. GPU provide stays a swing issue as Blackwell and successor components ramp and as hyperscalers allocate stock to inner builds.

On the crypto aspect, any shift in charge regimes that materially lifts charges per block can shut a number 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 value roughly $ 0.2 to $ 0.3 million per MW per 12 months in miner gross income at present value ranges, based mostly on the straightforward share-of-network math above.

Traders are watching the composition of income, quite than simply the exahash.

Contracted AI megawatts and {dollars} per MW per 12 months have gotten the brand new disclosures to trace. 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 actually 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 quicker 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.

These 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 by 2026 if materials parts of recent 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 may not cease capital from getting into mining, as excessive bitcoin costs and charge spikes can nonetheless enhance returns; nevertheless, it makes the hashrate leaderboard a weaker proxy for fairness worth than it was in prior cycles.

Under is a concise snapshot of the place the biggest listed miners stand at present. Standing displays whether or not AI/HPC is already producing income or remains to be within the planning or analysis phases, based mostly on firm disclosures and mainstream reporting.

What to observe now’s easy and measurable. Monitor 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 utilizing sources like CoinWarz.

These information factors will inform you how a lot mining energy shifts to GPUs, how shortly campuses energize, and the way the per-MW income hole evolves. The most important miners are already executing on that playbook.