Power dynamics: Bitcoin miners pivot to AI power providers
Bitcoin miners are diverting power to AI hosting, slowing hashrate growth at the margins just as post-halving economics bite. This shift introduces long-term questions about network security, as fewer megawatts chase block rewards and more flow into contracted, non-Bitcoin workloads.
Bitcoin miners are changing jobs
Bitcoin mining firm Cleanspark just bought 271 acres near Houston with 285 megawatts of interconnect-ready power. They're building liquid-cooled, AI-ready data halls through a partnership with Submer, a company that provides immersion cooling for high-performance computing.
CNBC framed it as a pivot: from pure-play Bitcoin miner to AI data center developer.
If the pivot from miner to AI power provider was an isolated move, it wouldn't really be much of a story. But, as it turns out, there's a larger trend happening across the sector.
Bitcoin miner, Terawulf has inked over 200 megawatts of decade-long AI hosting deals. Likewise mining outfits, Bitfarms and Hut 8 are both leaning into high-performance compute.
That means that the trend, really, is that miners are morphing into power landlords.
Why hashrate matters
Before we dive too deep into why the mining to power provider pivot could matter to Bitcoin, let's first take a look at hashrate as a concept.
Hashrate is the total computational power used to mine and secure the Bitcoin network, measured in hashes per second. It reflects how much energy is being directed toward solving Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism. Every 2,016 blocks (roughly two weeks), the protocol adjusts mining difficulty so blocks keep arriving about every ten minutes.
Daniel McGlynn
More hashrate means higher difficulty. Less hashrate, and the network lowers the bar. But difficulty doesn't care why miners come or go. If a miner shifts from mining to AI hosting, the protocol just adapts. A built-in difficulty adjustment is what keeps Bitcoin’s block time steady, no matter how many machines are mining.
But under the hood, a declining hashrate means fewer machines are competing to secure the network, which lowers the cost to attack it and raises long-term questions about Bitcoin’s security budget.
Miner revenue per unit of hashrate fell sharply after the April 2024 halving. A few high-fee periods helped, but the trend is down. So if you own megawatts and want to secure long-term cash flows, AI hosting starts to look good.
Miners as "power landlords"
Think of the model this way: miners control long-term power rights, energized land, and the physical shell. Add in liquid cooling and other specialized infrastructure, and you get an asset that is perfectly-suited for the needs of AI tenants. Miners become landlords, with rent-like cash flows replacing block rewards.
Daniel McGlynn
What it means for hashrate
When megawatts go to AI, they don’t go to mining. Less new hashrate comes online. Difficulty adjusts, but slower growth can ease pressure on remaining miners. Protocol issuance remains fixed and only fees vary.
Scenario A — durable AI premium: Miners chase multi-year AI deals. Hashrate growth slows versus 2023–24 levels.
Scenario B — AI overshoot by 2027: Too much GPU capacity floods the market. AI day-rates fall. Power swings back to mining, and hashrate re-accelerates.
Scenario C — fee supercycle: High onchain activity boosts hashprice. Even with AI pivots, miners can justify dedicating power to Bitcoin. Hashrate climbs again.
Why miners are pivoting to AI
As designed, the 2024 Bitcoin halving cut block rewards in half, compressing margins. AI hosting offers utility-like revenues: long-term, contracted, and less volatile. Miners already have the physical stack — land, power, substations, shells. They just need to add cooling and connectivity.
Cleanspark’s Submer deal fast-tracks immersion cooling, meanwhile Terawulf’s tenant has Google-backing and shows the potential of the miner AI pivot. What's interesting is that the new AI contracts are a decade-long and can be deployed quickly (instead of waiting years to build).
So right now, bitcoin miners have an advantage. Elsewhere in the high-performance computing provider space, power scarcity and slow interconnect queues make energized land a premium resource.
Miners who made the leap
Cleanspark: 285 megawatt near Houston. Positioning as an AI developer.
Terawulf: 200+ megawatt in 10-year hosting deals. ~$3.7b in contracted revenue. Google-backed tenant (Fluidstack).
Bitfarms: Converting a facility to a high-performance computing buildout and have said the company is evaluating more site conversions.
Hut 8: Building out four US-based campuses (~1.5 gigawatt) for crypto + AI. Shifting to contract-driven revenues.
Bit Digital: Cloud revenue is now sometimes even larger than mining revenue.
Long-term: the security budget question
Less investment into Bitcoin's proof-of-work means the network's security budget leans more on fees and efficiency.
That means for miners to stay profitalble, revenue has to come from somewhere else and the new revenue sources will have to be competitive with high-performance compute power rates.
Bitcoin miners used to chase hashes. Now they’re chasing tenants.