Public Bitcoin miners have secured over $70 billion in cumulative artificial intelligence and high-performance computing contracts through April 2026, according to aggregate filings and industry tracking data. The pivot accelerated this week with MARA Holdings' $1.5 billion agreement to acquire L...
"We are no longer a Bitcoin company. We are an infrastructure-first owner and developer for HPC/AI data centers across North America." — Ben Gagnon, CEO, Bitfarms (now Keel Infrastructure)
Public Bitcoin miners have secured over $70 billion in cumulative artificial intelligence and high-performance computing contracts through April 2026, according to aggregate filings and industry tracking data. The pivot accelerated this week with MARA Holdings' $1.5 billion agreement to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power, adding over 1 GW of potential power capacity for AI and critical IT workloads. Listed mining stocks have outperformed Bitcoin by approximately 70% year-to-date, even as BTC has declined roughly 12% from its all-time high.
The transition carries measurable consequences for the Bitcoin network. Mining difficulty fell 7.76% on March 22 — one of the largest single adjustments since 2021. Public miners liquidated over 15,000 BTC from peak treasury holdings to fund capital expenditures. CoinShares projects that AI and HPC could account for 70% of listed miners' revenue by year-end 2026, up from approximately 30% as of Q4 2025. This report examines the financial mechanics, deal structures, and network-level implications of the sector's most significant structural shift since the 2021 China mining ban.
The scale of committed capital now exceeds what most of these companies were worth 18 months ago. The largest deals, by total contract value:
The cost to construct AI-ready facilities has risen to $8–11 million per megawatt, driven by liquid cooling requirements and transformer shortages, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
MARA Holdings' acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power from FTAI Infrastructure, announced April 30, represents the latest and one of the largest single-asset transactions in the miner-to-AI pipeline.
Asset profile:
Financial structure:
Timeline: Construction on the initial AI and critical IT buildout is planned for H1 2027, with first capacity targeted for mid-2028. Closing is expected in H2 2026, subject to Hart-Scott-Rodino and FERC approval.
Fred Thiel, MARA's Chairman and CEO, stated: "Power is the scarce input in AI and, with the planned addition of Long Ridge Energy, we are gaining control of a highly efficient, contracted energy platform that has a rare combination of large-scale power, land, water access, fuel supply and grid interconnection in a single location."
MARA shares rose 9% on the announcement. FTAI Infrastructure noted the sale would be used to reduce its own debt.
The capital requirements of AI infrastructure have reversed the "hodl" treasury strategy that defined public miners from 2020 through 2024. According to CoinDesk analysis, sales from Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Riot Platforms, and Bitfarms account for the majority of a 15,096 BTC reduction from peak holdings across public miners.
Core Scientific's treasury trajectory illustrates the pattern: the company held 9,618 BTC at its peak, ended 2025 with 2,537 BTC, and had reduced holdings to approximately 630 BTC by Q1 2026 — a 93% drawdown — selling $175 million worth of Bitcoin to fund AI capital expenditure. MARA Holdings sold over $1 billion in BTC in recent months for similar purposes.
The selling is not irrational. Hashprice — the measure of miner revenue per unit of hashing power per day — fell to $28–30 per petahash/second/day in Q1 2026, according to CoinShares, down from $36–38 in late 2025. The average cash cost to mine one Bitcoin now sits at approximately $79,995. With Bitcoin trading below its all-time high, mid-tier miners are operating at or below breakeven on their mining operations, making the higher-margin AI contracts an economic necessity rather than a strategic luxury.
Bitfarms formalized the transition on February 6, 2026, announcing its rebranding to Keel Infrastructure and redomiciling from Canada to the United States. The company's stock jumped 16% on the announcement.
The revenue composition of the sector is undergoing a structural inversion. As of Q4 2025, AI and HPC accounted for roughly 30% of revenue across listed miners on average, according to CoinShares. Projections suggest this figure reaches 70% by year-end 2026 for operators with executed contracts.
Current revenue attribution by company:
The stock market has priced this shift. Listed mining equities have outperformed Bitcoin by approximately 70% year-to-date through April 2026, according to Bitcoin.com analysis. TeraWulf leads the top ten public miners with a 73.58% YTD gain. Hut 8, trading at $77.06, holds the highest share price among top ten listed miners by market valuation.
The margin differential explains the enthusiasm. IREN's Microsoft partnership carries an 85% project-level EBITDA margin. AI colocation contracts typically range from $8–15 million per MW in annual revenue, compared to roughly $2–4 million per MW from Bitcoin mining at current hashprice levels, according to multiple industry estimates compiled by S&P Global.
The miner exodus carries direct, measurable consequences for Bitcoin's proof-of-work security model.
Bitcoin's mining difficulty dropped 7.76% on March 22, 2026 — the second-largest single decline of the year. In January, SHA-256 hashrate fell 30–40% during Winter Storm Fern, hitting a seven-month low of 663 EH/s from peaks near 1.13 ZH/s, with some U.S. pools losing up to 60% of capacity. The subsequent difficulty retarget on February 8 was projected at -16.55% to -18%.
The structural concern, separate from weather events, is that miners redirecting power capacity away from SHA-256 hashing reduce the ongoing economic cost of a theoretical 51% attack. During the January trough, the theoretical double-spend cost declined 30–40% proportional to the hashrate decline, according to KuCoin research estimates.
However, several factors mitigate the immediate risk:
The longer-term question is geographic concentration. U.S.-based miners account for a disproportionate share of global hashrate, and their simultaneous pivot toward AI workloads — often at the same physical sites — increases the network's sensitivity to U.S. regulatory, energy market, and weather disruptions. The 7.76% difficulty drop on March 22 was not weather-related but structural, reflecting deliberate capacity reallocation.
The Bitcoin mining industry's transformation into AI infrastructure providers is no longer a handful of pilot projects. It is a $70 billion capital reallocation occurring across every major public miner simultaneously. The economic logic is straightforward: AI colocation generates $8–15 million per MW annually at 85% EBITDA margins, versus $2–4 million per MW from Bitcoin mining at current hashprice levels. Miners are rational actors responding to relative pricing signals.
The implications bifurcate into two distinct narratives. For mining company shareholders, the pivot has been rewarded — equities outperforming the underlying commodity by 70% suggests the market values these companies for their power and real estate portfolios, not their hashing capacity. For the Bitcoin network, the reallocation of power capacity introduces a structural variable that did not exist during the 2021 China ban: a voluntary, profit-motivated exit by Western miners who are not shutting down but redirecting their most valuable asset — power — toward higher-yielding workloads.
The difficulty adjustment algorithm will continue to function as designed. Block times will normalize. But the assumption that mining capacity, once built, remains permanently dedicated to Bitcoin no longer holds. Power, not ASICs, is the scarce input — and AI is now the higher bidder.