- As Bitcoin mining profitability worsens, U.S. Bitcoin miners are shifting into the AI and HPC data center business.
- Riot signed a 20-year long-term contract worth about $9.1 billion to lease a 191-megawatt data center to an AI company, and its shares surged more than 25% in after-hours trading.
- Bernstein said data center contracts between Bitcoin miners and AI and cloud companies have exceeded $135 billion, and the mining industry is being reshaped into a power infrastructure business.
Forecast Trend Report by Period
U.S. Bitcoin miners are rapidly shifting into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing data centers as falling Bitcoin prices and tougher mining economics erode profitability, while demand from AI companies for data centers and power surges.
Bitcoin has recently traded around $63,000 to $65,000, about half the record high near $125,000 reached last year. Even if miners produce the same amount of Bitcoin, their revenue inevitably declines.
Shrinking mining rewards are adding to the pressure. Following the halving in April 2024, the reward for mining a block fell to 3.125 Bitcoin from 6.25 Bitcoin. At the same time, network mining difficulty, which reflects the computing race among miners, remains elevated at about 127 trillion. Miners are spending more computing power and electricity while earning less Bitcoin.
Hashprice, a gauge of daily revenue per unit of computing power, has recently remained in the $30 range per PH/s. That leaves miners using older machines in regions with high electricity costs struggling to break even. CoinShares estimates that some operators running older equipment in markets where power prices exceed 6 cents per kilowatt-hour are losing money.
With their core business becoming less profitable, miners are increasingly reinventing themselves as AI infrastructure providers. Riot Platforms is one of the clearest examples. On Aug. 10, the company signed a 20-year agreement to lease 191 megawatts of data center capacity at its Rockdale, Texas, facility to an AI company. The contract is worth about $9.1 billion. If all extension options are exercised, the total could rise to $16.1 billion.
Riot did not disclose the counterparty, though foreign media reports identified it as likely Anthropic, the developer of the generative AI model Claude. Riot shares jumped more than 25% in after-hours trading after the deal was announced.
Riot had earlier signed a data center lease agreement with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices. Including the latest contract, its total AI and HPC leasing capacity stands at 241 megawatts, with about $9.8 billion in long-term contract revenue. The company is seeking steadier cash flow through long-term leases instead of relying on mining, where performance swings with Bitcoin prices.
