#Gate广场四月发帖挑战 The crypto industry earthquake! Leading miners are selling Bitcoin to invest in AI, revealing the truth behind the collective "switching tracks" in the crypto mining sector.

Recently, a major news broke in the crypto world: MARA Holdings, a top global Bitcoin miner, suddenly took action, selling a total of 15,133 Bitcoins in a short period, raising cash worth up to $1.1 billion. They then clearly stated that they plan to invest this capital into AI and high-performance computing (HPC). This move instantly shook the crypto community, but what’s more noteworthy is that MARA’s transformation is not an isolated case—more and more crypto mining companies are quietly abandoning their core "mining" business to embrace the AI track. Once considered a "cash cow," Bitcoin mining has fallen from being everyone’s favorite "money printer" to a "hot potato" that needs to be offloaded. Can AI truly become a "lifeline" for mining companies to escape their difficulties and achieve rebirth?

To understand the logic behind this industry transformation, we first need to see the survival dilemma faced by the crypto mining industry— the profitability model of Bitcoin mining has been completely rewritten, and the era of huge profits is gone.

In April 2024, Bitcoin completed its fourth halving, reducing the reward per block from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, which directly caused a significant shrinkage in miners’ core revenue. Mining profitability dropped from an average of about $0.08 per day (per TH/s) to $0.055 (per TH/s). While earnings decreased, costs continued to stay high. According to the latest report from CoinShares, in Q1 2026, Bitcoin’s hash price fell to $28–$30 per PH/s/day, hitting a new low after the halving. Meanwhile, in Q4 2025, the global weighted average cash cost of Bitcoin mining reached about $80,000 per coin, with approximately 15-20% of miners operating at a loss.

Beyond the cyclical challenges within the industry itself, tightening global regulations have further squeezed the survival space for crypto mining. Currently, global crypto asset regulation is shifting from "wild growth" to "rule restructuring." Developed economies like the US and Europe are rolling out regulatory policies to strengthen anti-money laundering measures, clarify rules for crypto asset issuance, and promote cross-jurisdictional cooperation, following the principle of "same business, same risk, same regulation." The EU has introduced the "Crypto Asset Market Regulation Law," implementing risk-based regulation for crypto assets, requiring trading platforms to meet minimum capital requirements and establish AML mechanisms. The US has not only approved Bitcoin spot ETFs but also established a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve," integrating the crypto market into its financial system. China, on the other hand, has long maintained a "prohibition-based" regulatory approach, cracking down on virtual currency trading and speculation to prevent financial risks. The tightening regulatory environment has significantly increased policy uncertainty for crypto mining, further forcing miners to seek new ways out.

The attitude of capital markets also directly reflects the difficulties faced by the crypto mining industry. Recently, leading mining companies listed on US stock exchanges have seen their stock prices decline collectively. MARA Holdings’ stock has fallen 25.78% over the past three months, with a current price-to-book ratio of only 0.56, meaning the market values its assets—such as mining machines and facilities—at just five to six times their book value. Capital is rapidly withdrawing from the highly volatile crypto asset sector. Wall Street investors are more concerned about "what else can mining farms do besides mining Bitcoin?" This trend of capital withdrawal further intensifies cash flow pressures on miners and makes transformation an inevitable choice. Against this backdrop, AI has become the preferred track for miners’ transformation, not by chance—miners’ existing infrastructure advantages align closely with the demands for AI computing power. Bitcoin mining farms inherently possess high-power supply, large-scale data centers, cooling systems, and other core facilities, which are precisely the conditions needed for AI computing (especially for training large language models and high-performance computing).

For mining companies, transitioning to AI doesn’t require building infrastructure from scratch—simply replacing existing mining equipment with AI computing devices allows for quick entry into AI computing services and efficient resource reuse. In fact, MARA has already laid out plans for this transformation. As early as August 2025, MARA acquired a 64% stake in Exaion, a tech subsidiary of a French power company, for $168 million in cash, aiming to leverage its HPC data centers and cloud services to tap into the AI computing market, which is growing at an annual rate of 25%, reducing dependence on cryptocurrency price fluctuations. The recent sale of Bitcoin for $1.1 billion in cash is part of this strategy—strengthening its balance sheet and providing ample funds for AI business expansion. MARA’s actions are just a microcosm of the collective industry shift toward transformation.

Core Scientific was the first to sign a 12-year, $3.5 billion GPU infrastructure hosting agreement with AI cloud provider CoreWeave, setting a benchmark for miners transitioning to AI; Riot has paused its Bitcoin mining expansion plans to rent out its farms to large-scale data centers and AI companies; TeraWulf signed a ten-year agreement with Fluidstack to provide high-performance computing clusters for major cloud service providers, also receiving $1.8 billion support from Google, with its stock soaring nearly 60% in a single day. These cases demonstrate that AI transformation for miners is not just blindly following trends but a strategic choice with practical feasibility.

However, it’s important to be clear that AI is not a "panacea" for miners— the path to transformation is also fraught with challenges. On one hand, the AI computing sector is highly competitive. Besides transitioning miners, traditional tech giants and specialized computing service providers have long been laying out their plans. As latecomers, miners face gaps in technology, talent, and customer resources. On the other hand, the core advantage of miners lies in infrastructure, while AI computing services require strong R&D and operational capabilities. How to achieve the capability shift from "mining" to "computing services" is a challenge all miners must face. Additionally, the AI industry itself experiences cyclical fluctuations; changes in computing demand and rapid technological iteration can impact the success of miners’ transformation. From an industry development perspective, the collective shift of crypto mining back to a "value-driven" industry from a "speculation-driven" one is an inevitable part of technological evolution.

Bitcoin mining once heavily relied on virtual currency price swings, leading to industry bubbles. Now, AI, as a core track in the current tech field, possesses sustainable commercial value and growth potential. By leveraging their infrastructure advantages to transition into AI, miners can not only free themselves from dependence on cryptocurrencies but also optimize resource allocation and promote healthy industry development.

Returning to the core question: Can AI truly become a "lifeline" for miners? The answer is "possibly, but not guaranteed." For miners with infrastructure advantages and the ability to quickly address gaps in technology and talent, AI could be a key to escaping difficulties and achieving secondary growth. But for those lacking core competitiveness and blindly following the trend, they may only fall into new predicaments.

The wave of transformation in the crypto mining industry has already begun, and MARA’s sale is just the start. In the future, with continuous technological iteration and regulatory improvement, more miners will join the transformation, and the AI track will welcome more participants. This shift is not only about the survival of individual miners but also about reshaping the entire industry landscape of crypto mining, which warrants ongoing attention.