Before the Bitcoin block reward halves to 3.125 BTC in 2024, miners are proactively positioning themselves in the new AI sector.

Some companies are only making preliminary attempts, while others are making large-scale investments, upgrading equipment, securing financing, and signing billion-dollar contracts.

But what is the actual effectiveness of this transformation? For some miners, AI has brought much-needed revenue during a period of sharply declining Bitcoin income; for others, it has become a risk buffer in the upcoming halving cycle.

Here are the business performances of Bitcoin mining giants after their transformation into AI.

Core Scientific is one of the typical representatives that achieved business recovery through AI transformation.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of 2022. In early 2024, it returned to Nasdaq and shifted from focusing on Bitcoin mining to becoming a data center hosting service provider, leasing data centers to AI companies. In June 2024, the company signed a 12-year agreement worth $3.5 billion with CoreWeave to provide data center hosting services for its high-performance computing (HPC) business.

Core Scientific reported Q1 2024 revenue of $79.5 million, a significant decline from $179.3 million in the same period last year. The company attributed the revenue drop mainly to the reduction in rewards due to the Bitcoin halving and the strategic shift to HPC hosting services. The substantial increase in Bitcoin prices after the halving somewhat mitigated the losses.

By the end of June 2025, CoreWeave restarted acquisition negotiations with Core Scientific after a previous $1 billion acquisition attempt failed. Related news drove Core Scientific's stock price up again.

Hut 8's AI strategy entered a substantial phase in September 2024, as the company officially launched its GPU-as-a-Service business through a newly established subsidiary, Highrise AI.

After the transformation, Hut 8 deployed over 1,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs—these specialized chips are widely used in AI model training and inference, supporting its cloud AI computing services. The project is backed by a five-year agreement that includes fixed payments and revenue sharing. After the halving in April 2024, Bitcoin mining revenue tightened, making AI business a new growth point.

As of Q1 2025, the company's Bitcoin production was 167 coins, a significant drop from 716 coins in the same period last year. Despite a net loss of $134.3 million for the quarter, CEO Asher Genoot stated that this reflects the company's proactive investment, which increased computing power by 79%. Currently, the company holds 10,273 Bitcoins, ranking ninth among publicly listed companies in Bitcoin holdings.

Currently, AI business still occupies a small proportion of Hut 8's overall business model, and the company continues to expand its Bitcoin main business. Recently, its holding subsidiary American Bitcoin announced the completion of $220 million in financing for the procurement of Bitcoin mining equipment. The son of former U.S. President Trump is one of the co-founders of American Bitcoin, and Hut 8 acquired a controlling stake in the company at the end of March this year.

Bitcoin mining companies like Iren and Hive still primarily focus on mining, but AI-related revenue has gradually emerged.

In early 2024, Australian mining company Iren (formerly Iris Energy) began procuring Nvidia GPUs. By February, the company signed its first AI computing power contract based on 248 GPUs. By mid-2025, Iren had deployed approximately 4,300 GPUs. In the third quarter of the 2025 fiscal year (ending March 31), Iren mined a total of 1,514 Bitcoins, an increase from 1,232 coins in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, AI cloud business revenue grew by 33% year-on-year, reaching $3.6 million. The company also plans to build a liquid-cooled AI data center in Texas and create a customized park in British Columbia, Canada, capable of accommodating up to 20,000 GPUs. However, a class-action lawsuit initiated in October 2024 accused Iren of misleading investors and exaggerating the progress of its Texas facility preparations.

Since mid-2023, Hive has officially transformed its focus to AI by rebranding from Hive Blockchain and concentrating on Nvidia computing clusters. After conducting small-scale pilot projects, Hive invested $30 million in December 2024 to deploy GPUs in Quebec, Canada. By mid-2025, it had deployed over 5,000 devices.

In the 2025 fiscal year, Hive achieved total revenue of $115.3 million, with AI and high-performance computing (HPC) hosting business contributing $10.1 million—three times that of the same period last year, currently accounting for nearly 9% of total revenue.

Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings are two giants in the Bitcoin mining sector, but both companies are currently preparing for the "post-mining era."

Riot began exploring AI and high-performance computing (HPC) business in early 2025, officially launching an assessment to transform its 600 MW capacity at the Corsicana facility in Texas into high-performance infrastructure. This strategic shift has also led to the suspension of plans to further expand the Bitcoin mining site. Although Riot has not signed any significant AI contracts yet, its Corsicana facility spans 355 acres and has the potential to support up to 1 GW of power, making it attractive to large-scale customers.

Riot continues to perform strongly in its Bitcoin business. In Q1 2025, the company mined a total of 1,530 Bitcoins, generating mining revenue of $142.9 million, nearly doubling from $71.4 million in the same period of 2024. The company attributed this growth to the increase in Bitcoin prices and enhanced operational computing power. Additionally, Riot holds 19,225 Bitcoins, making it the fourth-largest Bitcoin holder among global enterprises.

MARA, on the other hand, has the largest Bitcoin reserves among all mining companies, holding 50,000 Bitcoins, second only to MicroStrategy among all publicly listed companies.

In March 2024, MARA launched the MARA 2PIC700, an immersion cooling system designed for high-density computing (including AI and cryptocurrency mining). By mid-2024, the company repositioned its overall strategy to focus on "edge computing."

In early 2025, MARA initiated two high-performance computing pilot sites, each utilizing the 2PIC700 cooling system, with a power capacity of approximately 30 MW per site.

Currently, the strategic transformations of these two Bitcoin producers have not yet yielded significant contracts or sustained cash flow. With their substantial Bitcoin asset reserves, they are not in a hurry to diversify their business through AI.

Amidst the active positioning of many Bitcoin mining companies in AI and high-performance computing, ASIC manufacturer Canaan has chosen a completely different direction. In July 2025, the company announced the closure of its AI chip division.

Canaan holds only a 2.1% share of the global ASIC market, still considered a small to medium-sized enterprise compared to giants like Bitmain and MicroBT.

Canaan focuses on mining hardware and is committed to achieving long-term stable development in the North American market, carving out a unique path in an industry almost swept by the AI wave.

Related: Phoenix FIRE investors accuse of fleeing with funds, owner applies to dismiss the lawsuit

Original article: “Bitcoin (BTC) miners bet on AI last year and are now reaping the rewards”

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