Bitcoin mining has in recent years shifted power and room resources to AI and high performance calculations, and returns are being centrally reflected in capital markets. CoinDesk reported that, against the backdrop of the fall in the price of Bitcoin and the undermining of mining revenues, the mining companies that had been awarded the AI/HPC contract had significantly stronger valuation and revenue expectations than their counterparts, which were still dominated by pure mining.
The AI business valuation is significantly higher
The report cites data that focus AI and high performance-calculated mining companies have a value of about 12.3 times the value of the enterprise and 5.9 times the value of a pure TT mine. In the past year, earlier shifting shares of TerraWulf, IREN and Cipher Digital have more than doubled. By contrast, the slower transition to AI, MARA Holdings, fell by about 40 per cent over the same period.
Mining companies are able to access AI infrastructure because of the proximity of two types of business to capacity requirements. Both mining and AI calculations rely on low-cost electricity, large-scale machinery and efficient equipment capacity. The value of such infrastructure has been re-prioritized with the rapid growth of the computing needs of AI.
The profit from pure mining continues to be under pressure.
Bitcoin prices have accumulated a decline of about 45 per cent over the past eight months, reducing the profit space for mining. The price of Hashi, which measures the benefits of mining, has also fallen significantly. Last July, the daily income per PH/s was about $63 and has now fallen to about $31.8, almost halved.
Following a decline in revenues, more and more mining companies shut down some of their machines and the industry entered a longer cut-off phase. Reports indicate that Bitcoin ' s full-network computing capacity has declined from 1.14 ZH/s to 900 ETH/s, a decrease of about 21 per cent. This means that some of the high-cost capacity is being withdrawn, and the operating pressure of the pure mining company remains.
The AI contract became a new revenue feeder
The market revaluation of mining companies is mainly from stable cash flows brought about by long-term AI/HPC contracts. It is mentioned that the cumulative size of AI and high performance calculations contracts in the industry was estimated at $70 billion by the end of the season.
Of these, Riot Platforms recently signed a 20-year lease agreement with Anthropic, with a value of approximately $9.1 billion. As similar transactions increase, investors place more emphasis on the power, land and data centre resources in the hands of miners than on their bitcoin production.
In terms of current industry performance, the most valuable assets of mining companies are no longer just bitcoin excavated or held, but rather the ability to control scarce electricity and scalable computing infrastructure. This valuation may continue in the short term if AI demands continue to remain high; however, if the revenues from bitcoin mining recover, pure mining operations may be back on track.