This week, it became impossible to ignore the changing face of the Bitcoin mining industry.
In just one announcement, from a company that’s never even touched Bitcoin before, shares of the largest miners went ballistic.
Our IREN Ltd $IREN position has already more than doubled, Applied Digital $APLD is up +20% in two days, Cipher Mining $CIFR has surged +45%, Bitfarms $BITF is up +40%, and Riot Platforms $RIOT is up +20%.
So what was the catalyst?
Neibus Limited $NBIS signed a $17.4 billion, five-year GPU supply agreement with Microsoft.
Big tech companies like Microsoft and OpenAI need immense amounts of computing power and electricity. Deals like this show just how valuable that capacity is, and the smart Bitcoin miners have been positioning for this shift.
Because let’s be honest: Bitcoin mining is a brutal business. Margins get squeezed, profitability is volatile, and sustaining long-term returns is tough.
AI, on the other hand, is a different story. Margins are orders of magnitude higher.
That’s why I went through every Bitcoin miner’s filings and aggregated management’s guidance to size up the magnitude of this repositioning.
The takeaway?
By next year, revenue from High Power Computing (AI) will start to climb meaningfully. By 2027, for many, it will rival, or even surpass, their Bitcoin mining income.
But not all miners are created equal.
Some are pivoting aggressively into AI. Others are sticking with the old playbook: mine Bitcoin, hoard Bitcoin, repeat.
To separate winners from laggards, I mapped out each company’s projected energy allocation, how many megawatts will go toward Bitcoin mining versus high-power AI compute, and overlaid it with the stock's YTD returns.
The results were clear: the market is rewarding those leaning hardest into AI.
That’s why our IREN, APLD, and CIFR trades are outperforming, while MARA continues to lag.
And there’s another dynamic at play. The market isn’t just rewarding miners pivoting to AI, it’s punishing those acting like treasury companies.
Take Marathon Holdings $MARA. It holds 52,477 BTC, the second-largest corporate stash after MicroStrategy. But investor appetite for these “Bitcoin treasury” models is fading. The premium investors once paid is compressing, especially as better vehicles like the iShares Bitcoin ETF $IBIT gain traction.
Contrast that with IREN, which follows a strict no-HODL policy, selling all mined Bitcoin for cash. They aren’t weighed down by this repricing, and their stock reflects it.
And zooming out, I think this space still has legs.
The Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF $WGMI, a solid proxy for the sector, is only just breaking out.
