The shift of mining power to AI: potential risks for the crypto market in 2026+

[Fortify]

Reading the news in 2025, I increasingly encounter discussions about the transfer of computing power from mining to the AI sector.
GPUs, data centers, and cheap energy are becoming key resources — and the competition for them is growing.
I would be interested to hear your opinion:
- How realistic is this scenario for market change?
- Which mining segments could be most affected?
- Could this affect the security and  economy of the networks themselves in 2025–2026?
- What are the economic risks for mining as such?
To clarify, I am not talking about the “end of mining,” I am talking about a tangible redistribution of resources and capital in the context of a rapidly growing AI market and demand for these services.
If there are miners out there, it would be very interesting to hear their opinion!

It seems like this has already happened but is also increasing in speed. You can see it in the consumer markets as well where lots of graphics cards have gone up massively in cost, at first this was driven by crypto mining but the next wave as you say is AI. Who knows how big this wave will get and if it will break, because it does seem like a lot of AI forecasts are quite high but this might not be true. It is in the interests of companies like Microsoft to dominate or try to grab a large market share in this field, but there is starting to be push back from people who don't want it shoved into every application where it is not needed. There is a danger of "overhyping" the new abilities that this tech brings us and you have to wonder how many of the promised improvements are already in place which might not justify the massive expenditures being spent in future.

[sana54210]

There are individual miners who will not really be impacted here. Yes, it might be for institutional miners having huge firms or mining farms setup. They will compare the profits and if they see long term profits in AI, then they will definitely think about moving their computing power from mining to the AI industry. AI sector mostly has their own data centres and has the required computing power to expand. They will not consider stealing computing power from the mining sector. I think mining will be as it is even if AI sector exists hand in hand.

There are few specific mining equipment designed especially for mining instead of just renting out the computing power. These equipment will remain the same and people will continue mining as it has been going once since more than a decade now. They might consider investing in additional computing power to support the AI sector, but they will not completely move away from mining.

[DrBeer]

It's all rainbows and sunshine until AI data center doesn't become profitable anymore and there is too much competition. The same way hashrate difficulty of bitcoin adjusted and make mining become more profitable than having AI data center.
This is called the game of rotating capital, if companies shifted focus to AI, soon enough the market become over competitive and their margin profit become thin.

Other concern is lack of GPU supply because semiconductor production is limited due to complexity and their capital needed to start AI data center will exponentially become more expensive making ROI longer.

Of course, and that's logical! But now, observing the fall in the price of Bitcoin and frequent forecasts of even lower prices, we get a picture of the mining market where, simply put, “mining has become unprofitable.” Of course, if a company has huge financial reserves, it can continue mining, even at a loss, counting on price growth in the near future.
  But... it is difficult to predict what will happen to Bitcoin in the next 2-3-5 years, whether it will repeat its “seasonality” again. The question is: what should the owners of such huge mining farms do, especially in the absence of free money, but with regular expenses for equipment, rent, and electricity?
 

[WillyAp]

  But... it is difficult to predict what will happen to Bitcoin in the next 2-3-5 years, whether it will repeat its “seasonality” again. The question is: what should the owners of such huge mining farms do, especially in the absence of free money, but with regular expenses for equipment, rent, and electricity?
 

Not much different scenario as the last bear market. I'm guessing they have long breath and won't need to sell or go chapter 11 tomorrow.
People looking for daily changes fear for total losses much more than hardened miners.

[MinMan]

I don't think GPUs can really be of much help to the AI sector. Usually, these companies are huge now and are still growing. They will always have better budgets and will have huge data centres supporting their operations. GPUs were overpriced due to the limitations on the availability of chips. Mining industry only increased the use case of GPUs but did not directly inflate the price.

People still use GPUs for gaming, and I have seen some really excellent gaming setups where people spend thousands of dollars on just the monitor. Imagine how much they could afford to invest into these GPUs.

For AI, I think more data centres will evolve. I think this can be a good business plan to tackle the AI hype. Setting up a data centre and renting out the computing power to the AI sector can make us earn really good profits and can also be considered as a long-term business.

Companies like Microsoft are already working on AI with their copilot or copilot plus which is integrated directly into the chipset, but these companies will not really think about expanding their data centres to support AI operations. Instead, these companies will outsource the required computing power, and this is where small businesses can evolve.

[DrBeer]

Reading the news in 2025, I increasingly encounter discussions about the transfer of computing power from mining to the AI sector.
GPUs, data centers, and cheap energy are becoming key resources — and the competition for them is growing.
I would be interested to hear your opinion:
- How realistic is this scenario for market change?
- Which mining segments could be most affected?
- Could this affect the security and  economy of the networks themselves in 2025–2026?
- What are the economic risks for mining as such?
To clarify, I am not talking about the “end of mining,” I am talking about a tangible redistribution of resources and capital in the context of a rapidly growing AI market and demand for these services.
If there are miners out there, it would be very interesting to hear their opinion!

It seems like this has already happened but is also increasing in speed. You can see it in the consumer markets as well where lots of graphics cards have gone up massively in cost, at first this was driven by crypto mining but the next wave as you say is AI. Who knows how big this wave will get and if it will break, because it does seem like a lot of AI forecasts are quite high but this might not be true. It is in the interests of companies like Microsoft to dominate or try to grab a large market share in this field, but there is starting to be push back from people who don't want it shoved into every application where it is not needed. There is a danger of "overhyping" the new abilities that this tech brings us and you have to wonder how many of the promised improvements are already in place which might not justify the massive expenditures being spent in future.

There is a view that AI could become the next “dot-com” global crisis. There are both economic and technological arguments to support this.
But yesterday I read an interesting analysis—a large number of AI systems were evaluated, and it turned out that only about 15–20% of their effectiveness depends on algorithms; the rest is down to the computational power available to the systems.
 That said, I’ll clarify: for AI, it’s not just high “processor” performance that matters (and these are now specialized systems, essentially “ASICs for AI”), BUT ALSO RAM, which is consumed at breakneck speed.

[WillyAp]

That said, I’ll clarify: for AI, it’s not just high “processor” performance that matters (and these are now specialized systems, essentially “ASICs for AI”), BUT ALSO RAM, which is consumed at breakneck speed.

It a different thematic as the Rise of AI crated a lot of bots.
New research came up and it looks as many firms have to turn away from Dynamic Website with Databases as well as CDN which are now needing much more energy.
All thanks to bot traffic, 2026 its at around 50% of all traffic. Click ads Fraud also is another growing factor thanks to AI:

https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/19/online-bot-traffic-will-exceed-human-traffic-by-2027-cloudflare-ceo-says/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/26/ai-bots-humans-internet.html

[DrBeer]

As unpleasant as it may be, the situation is still not very positive.
"Just the numbers":
"The Bitcoin mining industry is undergoing a sharp shift: companies are moving en masse into the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC), while simultaneously selling off their cryptocurrency reserves to finance this transition.
The reason is the deteriorating economics of mining. According to CoinShares, the average cost of mining a single Bitcoin for public companies has reached approximately $80,000, while the market price hovers between $68,000 and $70,000. This translates to a loss of about $19,000 per coin and renders the previous business model unprofitable.
Against this backdrop, miners are actively expanding into AI. The industry has already signed infrastructure contracts worth more than $70 billion. Among the largest deals are Core Scientific’s $10.2 billion agreement with CoreWeave, TeraWulf’s $12.8 billion projects, and Hut 8’s $7 billion contract. It is expected that by the end of 2026, up to 70% of these companies’ revenue will come from AI.
In essence, mining companies are transforming into data center operators, where Bitcoin mining becomes a secondary business. Already, the share of revenue from AI is growing rapidly: at Core Scientific it stands at about 39%, and at TeraWulf-27%."

(c) https://devby.io/news/bitkoin-bolshe-ne-okupaetsya-mainery-massovo-begut-v-ii

[WillyAp]

As unpleasant as it may be, the situation is still not very positive.
"Just the numbers":
"The Bitcoin mining industry is undergoing a sharp shift: companies are moving en masse into the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC), while simultaneously selling off their cryptocurrency reserves to finance this transition.

Well AI is cooling down slowly, investors are a bit jittery about the lack of performance.
Ferrous activities on social networks show  that the need to AGI which is even further down the drain to keep the candle burning..


https://www.debevoise.com/insights/publications/2026/01/2026-insurance-industry-outlook

The global insurance market is projected to grow from $8.33 trillion in 2025 to over $11.6 trillion by 2030, with insurers focusing on private markets and high-quality fixed income as key investment strategies for 2026.

Gemini Source: https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/us-insurers-turn-bullish-on-2026-despite-inflation-fears-566545.aspx

[DrBeer]

As unpleasant as it may be, the situation is still not very positive.
"Just the numbers":
"The Bitcoin mining industry is undergoing a sharp shift: companies are moving en masse into the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC), while simultaneously selling off their cryptocurrency reserves to finance this transition.

Well AI is cooling down slowly, investors are a bit jittery about the lack of performance.
Ferrous activities on social networks show  that the need to AGI which is even further down the drain to keep the candle burning..


https://www.debevoise.com/insights/publications/2026/01/2026-insurance-industry-outlook

The global insurance market is projected to grow from $8.33 trillion in 2025 to over $11.6 trillion by 2030, with insurers focusing on private markets and high-quality fixed income as key investment strategies for 2026.

Gemini Source: https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/us-insurers-turn-bullish-on-2026-despite-inflation-fears-566545.aspx

When I asked Gemini, “What is currently more attractive to investors—cryptocurrencies or AI? Where are people investing more—in mining platforms or AI data centers?” he replied, after a moment’s thought:

"As of now (April 2026), the answer is clear: AI data centers significantly outperform traditional mining in terms of investment appeal and growth rates. Moreover, the mining sector itself is currently undergoing a massive transformation, “evolving” into infrastructure for neural networks.
Here is a detailed analysis of the situation:
1. Where the money is going: AI vs. Cryptocurrencies
In 2026, there is a sharp contrast in investment trends:
Cryptocurrencies: Capital inflows have slowed compared to 2025 (forecast: approximately $44 billion versus $130 billion a year earlier). Investors have become extremely selective, investing mainly in Bitcoin corporations and venture projects with real utility.
AI Infrastructure: There is a real boom here. In 2025 alone, public mining companies signed contracts to supply AI computing power (HPC) worth over $65 billion with giants such as Amazon and Microsoft.
2. Mining or AI Data Centers?
Investors are now massively shifting funds from “pure” mining to data centers for high-performance computing (HPC). The reasons are purely economic:
Parameter Bitcoin Mining (2026) AI Data Centers (HPC)
Profitability $16–$27 per PH per day (gross) 3–25 times higher for the same megawatt of energy
Stability Depends on the BTC price and network difficulty Stable long-term contracts with tech giants
Operating Margin Decreased after the 2024 halving 80% – 90% (for companies with GPU contracts)
Equipment Highly specialized ASICs (become obsolete in 3–5 years) GPU clusters (Nvidia H100/H200/B200), more versatile
3. Key Trend: The “Great Pivot” of Miners
The largest mining companies (Core Scientific, TeraWulf, Iris Energy, Bit Digital) have officially shifted their strategy.
Forecast for the end of 2026: For companies that have switched to AI, the share of revenue from mining will drop from 85% to less than 20%.
Miners have become the “golden ticket” for the AI industry because they already have what everyone else lacks: existing power capacity (about 6 GW, with plans to reach 12 GW by 2027) and cooling systems.
4. What does this mean for investors?
Direct investments in mining are currently considered high-risk and low-margin (“a penny-pinching game”). To turn a profit, you need access to electricity cheaper than $0.05 per kWh.
Investments in “hybrids” (former miners that have become AI hosts) are the current market favorites. Shares of such companies are rising on news of partnerships with cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud).
Crypto-AI tokens: Projects such as Bittensor (TAO) or decentralized computing protocols attract those who want to combine both trends. By 2026, they came to be perceived as the “currency of decentralized intelligence.”


Summary: If your priority is reliability and high margins, then AI data centers are in a league of their own. Cryptocurrencies remain attractive as “digital gold” (BTC) for savings, but as a business model, mining in its pure form is losing the battle for energy to artificial intelligence."

[beerlover]

This won't be an issue for a long time, AI has been around for a few years now, nothing new, and we have seen a lot of changes from bots to trading to gambling to even project making. None of that really matters because in the end we have faced a lot of situation that would not be all that weird, it's normal and we should be expecting this to be normal, and not really have any problems at all.

We need to realize this is not going to be that crazy, we can make this work, and all we need right now is that AI being actually used, otherwise it's just an idea. After it starts to get used, the new can start talking about it, and what to change, but for now it is not used so there is no discussion about that which would mean to anything.

[WillyAp]

"As of now (April 2026), the answer is clear: AI data centers significantly outperform traditional mining in terms of investment appeal and growth rates. Moreover, the mining sector itself is currently undergoing a massive transformation, “evolving” into infrastructure for neural networks.
Here is your input:
Summary: If your priority is reliability and high margins, then AI data centers are in a league of their own. Cryptocurrencies remain attractive as “digital gold” (BTC) for savings, but as a business model, mining in its pure form is losing the battle for energy to artificial intelligence."

Going to great but do those mining complexes get investment or do they have to invest themselves.?
AI biggest issue is a similar issue with analysts which only look at the greater picture. You miss out a lot.
The size of AI Data-center is tenfold or more larger.

[DrBeer]

"As of now (April 2026), the answer is clear: AI data centers significantly outperform traditional mining in terms of investment appeal and growth rates. Moreover, the mining sector itself is currently undergoing a massive transformation, “evolving” into infrastructure for neural networks.
Here is your input:
Summary: If your priority is reliability and high margins, then AI data centers are in a league of their own. Cryptocurrencies remain attractive as “digital gold” (BTC) for savings, but as a business model, mining in its pure form is losing the battle for energy to artificial intelligence."

Going to great but do those mining complexes get investment or do they have to invest themselves.?
AI biggest issue is a similar issue with analysts which only look at the greater picture. You miss out a lot.
The size of AI Data-center is tenfold or more larger.

The correct answer is probably this:
- a decline in investment appeal for mining farms, and consequently a decline in investment, which will lead to:
- a search for other sources of funding, amid falling Bitcoin prices and the negative impact on its price of external, non-technological factors, such as military conflicts and global economic problems.

[WillyAp]

The correct answer is probably this:
- a decline in investment appeal for mining farms, and consequently a decline in investment, which will lead to:
- a search for other sources of funding, amid falling Bitcoin prices and the negative impact on its price of external, non-technological factors, such as military conflicts and global economic problems.

Yes but mining is not that essential, nodes are much more important!

Key Takeaways

    Bitcoin miners are repurposing their data centers for AI infrastructure.
    Firms like Core Scientific, Iris Energy, and Hut 8 are leading the pivot.
    AI workloads can generate 25x higher revenue per MW than Bitcoin mining.

https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/bitcoin-mining-crisis-major-firms-abandon-crypto-for-ai-and-hpc/

I don't believe that to make a Bitcoin you need 79k:

The average public miner spent $79,995 to produce one bitcoin last quarter. Bitcoin is trading at $70,000. The math doesn't work, so the industry is pivoting to AI, taking on $70 billion in contracts, and liquidating bitcoin treasuries to finance the shift.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/03/27/bitcoin-miners-are-becoming-ai-companies-and-selling-their-btc-to-fund-the-transition

But who calculates? People have become lazy, lazy in thinking, deeper thinking is scarce nowadays.  

[philipma1957]

steady decline with a few blips since the move peak for 155.9t

we may drop again in a week or so.

at a certain time mining profits will boost a bit.

current price of 77.7k and diff of 135t soon to be 132t will boost profits

the lowest earning  was 2.99 cents a th

it is now around 3.60 cents a th

that is 20% raise for miners earnings pre expenses





my sources are viabtc.io for earnings per th
my graph source is coinwarz I added the lines and text to it.

also used talkimg

[internetional]

And as we can see, “all doors are open” for AI companies, which is not the case for mining companies.

This is exactly what I consider the main threat. Governments currently view AI as a strategically important industry. Whoever manages to develop AI will gain more global influence in the very near future.

Meanwhile, governments have a completely different attitude towards cryptocurrencies. Especially towards Bitcoin, which:
- provides maximum financial transparency (governments have no interest in exposing their actual financial flows),
- deprives states of the ability to control money issuance (without which they cannot wage wars),
- and makes it impossible to censor transactions (which literally means losing power over the population!).

Therefore, governments have a vested interest in stripping resources away from Bitcoin and handing them over to AI. I don't understand how El Salvador is still holding up. Although even there, they are probably already regretting that they made the wrong bet.

[DrBeer]

The correct answer is probably this:
- a decline in investment appeal for mining farms, and consequently a decline in investment, which will lead to:
- a search for other sources of funding, amid falling Bitcoin prices and the negative impact on its price of external, non-technological factors, such as military conflicts and global economic problems.

Yes but mining is not that essential, nodes are much more important!

Key Takeaways

    Bitcoin miners are repurposing their data centers for AI infrastructure.
    Firms like Core Scientific, Iris Energy, and Hut 8 are leading the pivot.
    AI workloads can generate 25x higher revenue per MW than Bitcoin mining.

https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/bitcoin-mining-crisis-major-firms-abandon-crypto-for-ai-and-hpc/

I don't believe that to make a Bitcoin you need 79k:

The average public miner spent $79,995 to produce one bitcoin last quarter. Bitcoin is trading at $70,000. The math doesn't work, so the industry is pivoting to AI, taking on $70 billion in contracts, and liquidating bitcoin treasuries to finance the shift.

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/03/27/bitcoin-miners-are-becoming-ai-companies-and-selling-their-btc-to-fund-the-transition

But who calculates? People have become lazy, lazy in thinking, deeper thinking is scarce nowadays.  

1. Okay, I agree that the network operates through nodes, but... mining is the WORK of the network; without mining, there would be no transaction validation!
2. “I don't believe it costs 79,000 to create a single Bitcoin”-you can believe it or not. Here’s a simple question: in your opinion, how much does it actually cost to mine 1 Bitcoin, including all direct and indirect expenses?
Can you suggest an algorithm for calculating the current cost of mining?
This isn’t a complaint; it’s a simple practical question: how do you mine if you don’t believe these figures?

[WillyAp]

Here’s a simple question: in your opinion, how much does it actually cost to mine 1 Bitcoin, including all direct and indirect expenses?
This isn’t a complaint; it’s a simple practical question: how do you mine if you don’t believe these figures?

The way I know humans the use their household Electricity bill and divide it by the coins produced.
You could set up a farm, use Eton's Starlink and use wind power, solar panels to provide for electric. Depending on the miner what generation those miner costs.

Antminer         S19 Pro       110 Th/s SHA-256   $2,860   
AvalonMiner A1166 Pro   81TH/s   SHA-256   $1,550   
AvalonMiner 1246           90Th/s   SHA-256   $3,890   
WhatsMiner M30S++   112TH/s±5%   SHA-256
WhatsMiner M32-62T  62TH/s +/- 5   SHA-256   $1,100   

What would you go for?

Similar to the noise coming out of the EU for the strait of Hormuz blockade, about 25% of the oil consumed comes thru there.
25% reduction should not create an implosion of the EU.
 

[DrBeer]

And as we can see, “all doors are open” for AI companies, which is not the case for mining companies.

This is exactly what I consider the main threat. Governments currently view AI as a strategically important industry. Whoever manages to develop AI will gain more global influence in the very near future.

Meanwhile, governments have a completely different attitude towards cryptocurrencies. Especially towards Bitcoin, which:
- provides maximum financial transparency (governments have no interest in exposing their actual financial flows),
- deprives states of the ability to control money issuance (without which they cannot wage wars),
- and makes it impossible to censor transactions (which literally means losing power over the population!).

Therefore, governments have a vested interest in stripping resources away from Bitcoin and handing them over to AI. I don't understand how El Salvador is still holding up. Although even there, they are probably already regretting that they made the wrong bet.

The problem is that Bitcoin-or independent, decentralized cryptocurrencies as a concept-is... NOT IN THE INTEREST OF ANY GOVERNMENT, in any country!
A decentralized currency cannot be manipulated; it is impossible to “print money” when necessary, and it is impossible to conduct “secret transactions.” Independence and anonymity, which are the advantages of the cryptocurrency concept, are now seen as inconveniences and risks by those in power! And they don’t understand the advantages-they FEAR them!

[DrBeer]

Here’s a simple question: in your opinion, how much does it actually cost to mine 1 Bitcoin, including all direct and indirect expenses?
This isn’t a complaint; it’s a simple practical question: how do you mine if you don’t believe these figures?

The way I know humans the use their household Electricity bill and divide it by the coins produced.
You could set up a farm, use Eton's Starlink and use wind power, solar panels to provide for electric. Depending on the miner what generation those miner costs.

Antminer         S19 Pro       110 Th/s SHA-256   $2,860   
AvalonMiner A1166 Pro   81TH/s   SHA-256   $1,550   
AvalonMiner 1246           90Th/s   SHA-256   $3,890   
WhatsMiner M30S++   112TH/s±5%   SHA-256
WhatsMiner M32-62T  62TH/s +/- 5   SHA-256   $1,100   

What would you go for?

Similar to the noise coming out of the EU for the strait of Hormuz blockade, about 25% of the oil consumed comes thru there.
25% reduction should not create an implosion of the EU.
 

I would be talking about the total cost of Bitcoin mining. And that includes:
- the cost of electricity consumed
- facility rental
- staff salaries
- taxes
- the cost of purchasing mining equipment
-...

The cost of electricity alone is just a PART of the actual costs