"Bitcoin Miners Abandon Bitcoin in Favor of Artificial Intelligence, a Historic Mistake"

By Juan Galt from BitcoinMagazine

There’s no doubt we are living in the age of artificial intelligence. Companies are halving their workforce to invest their cash flows into hardware development, while the stock market remains near all-time highs, largely thanks to major tech giants (FAANG). The OpenClaw program, a self-hosted AI agent, has more stars on GitHub than Linux and React combined, even Jack Dorsey himself is taking strict measures to restructure Block in response to digital and AI advancements. But how valid is this media hype around AI, and how many companies building infrastructure will actually profit?

Bitcoin miners in America have made their decisions, with many allocating capital to build AI-based data centers, and some even rebranding entirely, distancing themselves from Bitcoin.
While the narratives and statements about AI from Bitcoin miners vary, some stand out as the most radical.

Cifer Mining, valued at around $6 billion, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency mining companies in the country, announced a complete rebranding, shifting focus from Bitcoin to AI. In its latest investment report titled "Rebranding to Cifer Digital to Reflect Strategic Shift Toward High-Performance Computing," the company explained its reason for "divesting 49% of its Alborz, Bure, and Shif mining sites." Another major publicly traded mining company, Bit Farms Limited, valued at over $1 billion, has fully transitioned toward AI. CoinDesk reported that CEO Ben Ganyan stated, "We are no longer a Bitcoin company," despite keeping "Bitcoin" in the name.

Some of these public companies expect digital AI returns in dollars to surpass what they earn from Bitcoin, at least in the short to medium term, while others may see it as diversification or a huge opportunity they can't pass up.

Kint Haliburton, co-founder and CEO of SazMining, told Bitcoin Magazine in an exclusive interview that "the average cost to mine one Bitcoin is currently about $87,000, while the spot price of Bitcoin is around $70,000. So, most Bitcoin mining companies are suffering significant losses, and public miners are using this as an excuse to change their strategies." SazMining is a private Bitcoin mining company focused on renewable energy sources, operating mostly outside the U.S.

Haliburton also pointed out that "the $87,000 is an industry average, including operators using old mining hardware powered by electricity in Texas. In our sites in Paraguay and Ethiopia, our clients produce Bitcoin at energy costs between $50,000 and $64,000, using 100% renewable energy. That’s a discount of 10 to 30% off the spot price. Profitability is very clear." But achieving this requires a longer-term investment horizon or cheaper energy, both of which are unavailable to U.S. public mining companies with dollar-denominated quarterly reports.

Regarding cheaper energy, Haliburton notes that U.S.-listed Bitcoin mining companies had the opportunity to compete but failed to leverage their resources. He expressed his opinion very clearly, saying these companies "owned energy contracts, land, and infrastructure—everything needed to mine Bitcoin at low cost—and now they are handing it over to Microsoft and Google for cheap rents. They have shifted from securing the Bitcoin network to securing server spaces for giant cloud computing companies, calling it a strategy. Meanwhile, they have surrendered over 15,000 Bitcoins from their balance sheets to fund this transition."

In April 2025, IREN Limited, one of the largest public Bitcoin mining companies, began shifting toward AI cloud computing services, announcing a five-year deal worth $9.7 billion with Microsoft to provide 200 MW of bioinformatics workloads using NVIDIA GB300 GPUs.

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