Analysis: AI computing power competes for electricity resources; Bitcoin miners shift to renting out computing power for more stable income.

According to a report by CoinDesk on April 7th, as reported by Mars Finance, AI computing power is becoming one of the largest sources of new electricity demand in the United States. This trend coincides with a crucial moment for Bitcoin miners: whether to continue mining or lease their infrastructure to AI companies. This trend is becoming increasingly apparent. Core Scientific, through its partnership with CoreWeave, has converted most of its mining computing power into AI hosting services. Iris Energy and Hut 8 have also expanded their AI and high-performance computing (HPC) revenues. Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings, and Genius Group disclosed last week the sale of over 19,000 Bitcoins, indicating that relying solely on mining economics is no longer sustainable at current prices and network difficulty. A Bitcoin miner operating 1 gigawatt of computing power experiences revenue fluctuations with Bitcoin prices and network difficulty. However, leasing the same 1 gigawatt of computing power to an AI company provides a contractually agreed-upon revenue with predictable cash flow. With Bitcoin at $69,000, network difficulty at an all-time high, and energy costs rising as all other industrial users compete for the same grid capacity, renting out computing power to AI is often more lucrative. However, this doesn't mean Bitcoin mining is dying. Network hashrate continues to break records, exceeding 1 zetahash/s. But the miners who survive the current cycle may no longer resemble energy companies producing Bitcoin, but rather infrastructure companies—mining Bitcoin incidentally while simultaneously renting out their real asset—massive amounts of cheap electricity—to the AI industry, which cannot quickly build data centers.