In the State of the Union address, President Donald Trump highlighted innovation policies in an effort to ease concerns about restrictive trade actions and reinforce the idea of economic resilience. While Bitcoin [BTC] briefly rose to $69,000 but has since fallen 6% in less than three days.
The long-term bearish pressure on BTC has put increasing pressure on miners. The “electrical cost” of Bitcoin has fallen from $71,000 in the fourth quarter of 2025 to about $53.5,000 today. This means that it becomes cheaper to mine Bitcoin because the inefficient miners were forced to close their operations, making it easier to mine.
AI and data centers are changing the Bitcoin mining world
In August 2024, VanEck published a report highlighting the increasing importance of Bitcoin miners in the field of AI and high-performance computing (HPC). They argued that miners were missing a huge opportunity for valuation arbitrage.
They forecast annual revenue of about $9.11 million per MW (megawatt, or 1 million watts delivered continuously, 24 hours a day for a year) for AI/HPC.
Bitcoin miners trade at an average of ~$4.5 million per megawatt (MW) of installed capacity, while some data center stocks trade at $30 million/MW or more. If these miners can move 20% of their installed capacity to AI/HPC infrastructure, they can “easily double their market capitalization by 2028.”
According to Miner Weekly, revenue per megawatt and GPUs aren’t the only metrics to look at. The bond market is another powerful lens through which to view the AI and data center boom. Over the past twelve months, $33 billion in long-term senior notes have been issued by Bitcoin mining/AI infrastructure companies.
The bond market unveiled a ‘risk ladder’ ranging from 4% for low-risk incumbent energy giants. On the high-yield end of the spectrum, Bitcoin infrastructure companies like CoreWeave paid speculative-grade credit at up to 9.25%.
As VanEck noted, Bitcoin miners can use their existing sites to host AI/HPC workloads within a year. The lenders priced them as growth credits, charging a significant premium compared to the established energy giants.
Bitcoin infrastructure giants are already making the leap
TeraWulf’w Q4 and full year financial and operational results showed a transition from BTC miner to AI infrastructure player. Major deals such as the long-term lease commitments for 60 MW with Core42 and 380 MW with FluidStack “significantly improve revenue sustainability.”
Digital asset revenues declined in the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to the third quarter. HPC lease revenue increased to $9.7 million, compared to $7.2 million in the third quarter of 2025.
Marathon Digital used its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call to provide an overview strategic shift beyond Bitcoin mining. The centerpiece of the shift was the joint venture with Starwood Digital Ventures.
MARA will contribute dedicated energy, while Starwood will handle design, construction, tenant acquisition and operations. MARA can retain up to 50% of the shares while gaining access to Starwood’s institutional investment-grade capital.
This company focuses on the conversion of its powered sites to data centers. Starwood Capital Group’s data center development platform is expected to deliver more than 1 GW of IT capacity in the short term. There is a route to more than 2.5 GW.
As Miner Weekly rightly points out, there is a big question hanging over these developments. The continued demand for AI would make premium capital acceptable. Assets would rise in value, and rising incomes would make debt refinancing easier.
On the other hand, a drop in demand for AI would cause hyperscaler buildouts to lose momentum. The high debts would quickly become a burden.
Final summary
- Falling Bitcoin prices and mounting difficulties caused Bitcoin mining companies to see their digital asset revenues decline in the fourth quarter of 2025.
- This has made it increasingly attractive and possibly even necessary for large-scale miners to offload some of their computing capacity to AI/HPC data centers.