For years, bitcoin miners traded like a leveraged bet on the token they produce. That relationship broke down over the past year, according to a recent CoinShares report.
Key Takeaways:
- Bitcoin fell 31% over the past year, while four of the five largest miners gained.
- In August, efficient mining fleets turned a profit while older rigs lost money on the same power.
- WGMI broadened past miners in August to add AI infrastructure names like Nebius and CoreWeave.
Bitcoin fell roughly 31% over the 12 months through September 1. Hut 8 Corp. (HUT) gained 188.1% over the same stretch. Riot Platforms, Inc. (RIOT) rose 29.9% and CleanSpark, Inc. (CLSK) climbed 22.7%. Four of the five largest miners beat bitcoin instead of tracking it, CoinShares found.
The reversal traces to a shift in how miners make money, according to CoinShares. Rather than only converting electricity into bitcoin, operators are increasingly leasing those same power contracts to artificial intelligence data centers. That shift has turned mining stocks into a bet on digital infrastructure, not a leveraged play on the token’s price.
Efficiency explains the divergence at the fleet level, according to CoinShares. At the end of August, efficient mining rigs turned a megawatt-hour into about $136 of bitcoin. Those rigs ran below 14 joules per terahash. Machines using 25 to 38 joules per terahash converted the same power into roughly $51.
The average U.S. industrial electricity price was 8.85 cents per kilowatt-hour in July. At that rate, efficient fleets turned a profit while older machines lost money.
Operators with aging fleets found a more profitable use for that power: artificial intelligence. Core Scientific, Inc. (CORZ) generated 83% of its second-quarter revenue from AI colocation rather than mining, CoinShares reported.
Riot signed a 191-megawatt, 20-year lease in August, worth $9.1 billion in contracted revenue. Hut 8 has lined up 949 megawatts of AI capacity valued at $26.6 billion, none of it energized yet.
The ETF Built for Bitcoin Miners Changes Course
Underwriting a single miner increasingly means underwriting power markets and data center construction schedules, not just mining economics, CoinShares noted. A fund spreads that risk across operators.
CoinShares pointed to its own ETF, the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining and Digital Power ETF (WGMI ), as an example of how fast the category is shifting.
WGMI changed its investment strategy August 11 and was renamed a week later, according to CoinShares. Its mandate now reaches beyond miners into hyperscale data centers, AI semiconductors and power generation.
See more: WGMI Bitcoin Mining ETF Expands Into AI Power Race
Holdings include Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS) and CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV). Miners such as Cipher Digital Inc. (CIFR), Hut 8 and Riot remain in the portfolio too.
That AI exposure doesn’t always help, though. In the month through August 26, bitcoin rose 22.5%, according to CoinShares. Miners that had leaned hardest into AI finished flat or lower. Three of the most financially stressed pure-bitcoin operators, the ones with the heaviest losses, led the market instead.
VettaFi and CoinShares will host a due diligence session on this shift on September 22 at 12:30 p.m. ET. The session is titled “The Convergence of Bitcoin Mining and AI: From Crypto Niche to Digital Power Infrastructure.” It features CoinShares’ Calvin Tintle and VettaFi’s Roxanna Islam. They will cover what hyperscalers need from miners and where WGMI fits in a portfolio. Register here.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit the CoinShares Crypto ETF Hub.
