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Bitcoin miners reframe contracts as AI and high-performance compute demand
Listed miners say cumulative announced AI and high-performance computing contracts across the sector now exceed $70B, shifting the industry beyond bitcoin block rewards toward contracted compute.
ETF Trends highlights how listed bitcoin miners have announced more than $70B in AI and high-performance computing contracts, positioning the sector less as a single bitcoin proxy and more as an allocation to digital power infrastructure. The piece frames this as a business model refounding around two demand engines, block rewards and contracted AI compute, while noting that mining economics still hinge on bitcoin price, the block reward, and power costs. It cites the April 2024 halving that cut the reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC and says newly issued bitcoin makes up close to 99% of the $17.0B miners earned in 2025, with transaction fees as a smaller remainder.
Competition is described as intensifying as the network’s combined computing power runs close to 1 zettahash per second. The article argues miners effectively operate as energy arbitrageurs, securing cheaper electricity and converting it into globally tradeable assets when customers are willing to pay contracted, dollar-denominated rates for compute capacity.
On the demand side, the outlet points to International Energy Agency projections that global data center electricity consumption could roughly double from about 485 TWh in 2025 to around 950 TWh by 2030, with AI the main driver. It also notes that miners have spent years building power and infrastructure portfolios and cites Core Scientific’s 12-year hosting agreements with CoreWeave, which the article says total $10.2B in contract value.
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