Bitcoin miners profit as AI hits power bottleneck

Bitcoin miners are leasing energized sites and heavy-duty power infrastructure to artificial intelligence firms as grid capacity tightens across the United States. TeraWulf’s 20-year lease with Anthropic covers about 401 megawatts at a Hawesville, Kentucky campus and is expected to generate roughly $19 billion in contracted revenue over the term. The Texas grid operator ERCOT reported about 430 gigawatts of projects awaiting connection, with a median wait of 1.5 to 2 years and roughly 90% of applications coming from data centers, according to CoinShares analysts on a July 14 webinar.

Over the past decade mining companies built land holdings, substations and high-capacity power hookups to run intensive mining equipment. Those features provide secured grid access, large parcels and on-site power distribution that AI data centers require. Long lead times to add new substations and transmission lines have encouraged cloud and AI companies to lease existing energized sites rather than wait for new grid connections.

Recent agreements illustrate the trend. TeraWulf’s deal with Anthropic was announced in early July. CleanSpark reported a 20-year infrastructure lease valued at about $6.6 billion. Core Scientific signed a 12-year, $10 billion hosting agreement with CoreWeave. Hut 8 agreed to a 15-year, $7 billion lease with Fluidstack, and Cipher Mining reached a multibillion-dollar agreement with Fluidstack that includes backing from Google.

CoinShares analysts described the arrangements as an added revenue stream for mining companies rather than a full exit from bitcoin mining. Matthew Kimmell described mining as “a buyer of last resort for electricity,” noting that mining rigs can be turned on or off quickly to use stranded or underutilized power.

That operational flexibility differs from AI data centers, which require higher uptime and stable network connections and therefore rely on long-term contracts for capacity. CoinShares projects that about 80% of listed bitcoin mining companies will generate AI-related revenue by the end of the year.

Panelists on the webinar addressed the long-term outlook for mining after bitcoin issuance reaches its 21 million cap, an event not expected for roughly a century. They said miners will continue to process transactions and collect fees after block rewards decline. They also pointed to local resistance to new data center construction, including a pause on new developments in New York, as a factor that reduces the number of ready sites for AI expansion.

AI companies have signed multiyear leases to secure immediate, large-scale power and infrastructure. Mining companies continue to operate mining rigs where economic and grid conditions allow while leasing power and facilities to AI customers under long-term contracts.