Bitcoin Price Recovery Unlikely to Lure AI-Focused Miners Back, CoinShares Says

The exodus of publicly traded bitcoin miners into artificial intelligence infrastructure will likely continue even if bitcoin prices recover, CoinShares said in its second-quarter bitcoin mining report published Tuesday, according to The Block. "A BTC recovery is unlikely to reverse the AI transition," the firm said. Report author Luke Nolan pointed to signs the shift is hard to undo: Core Scientific paid nearly $42 million to cancel an agreement for 15 EH/s of next-generation mining hardware, while several other operators have committed sites to AI and high-performance computing leases running upwards of 15 years. At least 35 EH/s of computing power is already scheduled to leave the listed group of miners, equal to about 4.7% of Bitcoin's current 750 EH/s network hashrate. Keel, formerly Bitfarms, stopped mining entirely in June; IREN plans to complete its exit by the end of 2026; Cipher Digital is likely to leave mining by the end of 2027; and TeraWulf is winding down its remaining 145 megawatts of mining power. The economics explain the move: CoinShares estimates AI currently generates profits of roughly $1.5 million per megawatt for these companies, versus about $500,000 per megawatt from bitcoin mining. The average cash cost to produce a bitcoin reached roughly $75,500 in the second quarter, while bitcoin ended the period at just $58,400, and the monthly average hash price fell to an all-time low of $27.70 per PH/s per day in June. Conditions have improved since, with bitcoin's recovery to around $77,000 lifting hash price to about $38 per PH/s per day and pushing most operators back above cash breakeven. A sustained price rise could improve the numbers and even prompt some added mining capacity, but CoinShares expects such investment mainly among flexible miners such as Riot, MARA, HIVE and Bitdeer — while those that have already committed power and infrastructure to AI will stay the course and not return.