$BTC Bitcoin miners are becoming AI companies and selling their BTC to fund the transition

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.

What to know:

Publicly listed bitcoin miners are facing unsustainable economics, losing roughly $19,000 per coin produced, and are rapidly pivoting toward artificial-intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure.

More than $70 billion in AI and HPC contracts have been signed, and some miners could derive up to 70 percent of their revenue from AI by the end of 2026, effectively turning them into data-center operators that still mine bitcoin on the side.

This shift is being financed by heavy borrowing and large bitcoin sales, pressuring network security as hashrate declines and leaving the industry’s future dependent on whether bitcoin’s price can recover to around $100,000.