CoinShares says listed Bitcoin miners are shifting to AI compute leasing because it pays roughly three times more than mining, and the firm doubts a Bitcoin price recovery would reverse that shift. The report ties the move to a sharp rise in mining costs and a steep drop in mining revenue through Q2 2026.
AI compute leases now generate about $1.5 million per megawatt annually for miners, compared with $500,000 per MW from BTC mining, according to a CoinShares report. That gap is driving public miners to abandon mining hardware and redirect sites toward AI and data center build-outs.
Miners are paying to stop mining
Core Scientific, a publicly listed miner, paid about $42 million to cancel a next-generation mining hardware agreement. Keel, formerly Bitfarms, and Cipher have sold part of their BTC reserves to fund AI and data center expansion. Keel ceased BTC mining in June, and IREN plans to follow by December 2026, while MARA has been gradually pivoting toward AI.
CoinShares estimates that 35 EH/s of hashpower will leave listed miners by the end of the year, and the firm says even a Bitcoin price rebound would not change the trend. According to CoinShares: "A BTC recovery is unlikely to reverse the AI transition." Strict regulation on AI and data center build-outs has made energized sites, including Bitcoin mining locations, scarce, and AI compute offers steadier returns than volatile mining revenue.
Mining costs outpaced Bitcoin's price
The pivot followed Bitcoin's drop from over $125,000 in October 2025 to below $60,000 in 2026. CoinShares says the average cost of mining BTC rose to $75,500 in Q2 2026, while the asset's price slipped to a record low of $58,400.
Mining had become too expensive to sustain, which pushed hashrate down by over 50% as miners partially or fully exited.
CoinShares views the hashrate decline as typical of post-halving patterns that could rebound ahead of the next halving. Economist Saifedean Ammous disagrees, arguing that aggregate mining may never return to its prior growth path. He points to Bitcoin's shrinking block rewards, which fall from 3.125 BTC to 1.56 BTC starting in 2028, as a reason the sector could become less attractive. MARA CEO Fred Thiel has voiced a similar outlook in the past.
Source: AMBCrypto
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