Bitcoin: BTC Miners Could Derive 70% of Their Revenue from AI by Late 2026

Rapid transformation in Texas warehouses. The buildings remain, as do the discounted electricity contracts. But inside, mining machines are being replaced, rack by rack, by Nvidia graphics cards. This shift is not new, as miners have been turning to AI for two years now. What has changed is the speed. In spring, a projection of 70% of revenue from AI by December seemed bold. The second-quarter accounts, published in August, made it seem almost timid. Among the top performers, bitcoin mining has already become a side activity. Key points of this article:

• CoinShares has targeted a radical transformation of Bitcoin miners towards AI with a projection of 70% of revenue from AI by 2026.
• Core Scientific and TeraWulf have already made key strides, recording a significant portion of their revenue from high-density hosting by the second quarter of 2026.
  The projection comes from CoinShares, in a note signed by DJ Shaw on March 30. The manager, who oversees the WGMI ETF dedicated to mining companies, wrote that these firms "could derive up to 70% of their revenue from AI and high-performance computing by the end of 2026, compared to about 30% at the beginning of the year." Five months later, two of its top four have already checked that box.
  Core Scientific recorded $136.7 million in revenue from high-density hosting in the second quarter, accounting for 83% of its total revenue. A year earlier, this line brought in $10.6 million. Mining now only generates $27.5 million. TeraWulf is on the same path with $31.9 million from computing capacity rental, 71% of its revenue, compared to $12.8 million from bitcoin. And Riot has put a foot in the door ($23.2 million in data center revenue) before signing a twenty-year lease worth $9.1 billion with Anthropic on August 11. The stock jumped 20% in pre-market trading that day.
  The engine of this shift can be summed up in one word: hashprice, or the daily revenue generated by a unit of computing power. It has stagnated around $30 per petahash per day since March, down from $63 in the summer of 2025. Bitcoin itself hit $64,000 in mid-August, before rebounding 27% in a month to flirt with $80,000 this Friday. In other words, roughly the average production cost for listed miners. Mining is at break-even, at best.
  The accounts of pure miners confirm this. MARA produced 2,422 BTC in the second quarter, but its revenue fell 27% year-on-year, and its net loss reached $611 million. Riot extracted 1,587 bitcoins at a unit value of $71,667, down from $98,800 a year earlier, and its costs now absorb 69.6% of its production. Bitdeer reported a gross loss despite a 47% increase in revenue. Under these conditions, it is difficult to convince a board to order new ASICs instead of GPUs.
  The aggregated figures were released on August 20. According to the Miner Weekly letter from BlocksBridge, listed miners saw their cumulative computing power drop from 368.3 to 319 exahashes per second between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, a decline of 13.4%. Excluding Bitdeer, which did the opposite by increasing its capacity by 44%, the cohort even slashed 21.2% of its hashrate. The network itself lost only 10.6% during this period. Listed miners are disconnecting faster than the competition and redirecting megawatts towards AI.
  The price to pay is evident in the balance sheets. Nine miners invested $5.11 billion in the first half for $341 million in AI revenue, a ratio of fifteen to one. BlocksBridge summarizes it bluntly: electricity contracts and real estate "give a head start, but converting these assets into AI capacity requires substations, buildings, cooling, networks, and sometimes GPUs." To finance all this, the sector has chosen debt and the sale of its reserves over patience.
  This precedent already exists elsewhere, with shopping center real estate firms converted into logistics warehouses. The miner becomes a property owner renting megawatts to Google, Microsoft, or Anthropic, and a Bitcoin giant selling off 27% of its BTC treasure to finance the project no longer surprises anyone. In the second quarter, the AI revenues of the nine miners tracked by BlocksBridge grew by 52% in three months, reaching $205.8 million.

This content is provided for general informational purposes only and doesn't constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. Any events, rewards, online promotions, or related information mentioned herein should not be considered a recommendation, solicitation, or invitation to purchase, sell, trade, or otherwise deal in any crypto assets. Crypto assets are highly volatile and may result in loss. The availability of WEEX services, products, and related events may vary by region. You are responsible for ensuring that your participation is in accordance with applicable local laws and regulations.