Cryptocurrency miners are turning to AI for new revenue streams due to challenges in their traditional operations.
The miners are reportedly using their advanced computing facilities to support artificial intelligence (AI), coping with high energy costs and diminishing returns in cryptocurrency mining.
Core Scientific, Bitcoin’s largest miner, is leading this shift. The company’s CEO, Adam Sullivan, highlighted a significant deal with AI cloud services provider CoreWeave that is expected to generate $4.7 billion over 12 years. CoreWeave, which switched from cryptocurrency mining to AI, achieved a $19 billion valuation in May after raising $7.5 billion in debt financing.
AI companies need significant energy and computing resources, making the existing infrastructure of cryptomining a lucrative option. J.P. Morgan analysts say that building HPC data centers can take 3-5 years until miners’ configurations are ready for use.
High performance computing (HPC) is the ability to process data and perform complex calculations at high speed.
Other miners such as TeraWulf Inc. and Hut 8 Corp. are also expanding into AI, with TeraWulf developing a new HPC project and Hut 8 receiving a $150 million investment to develop AI infrastructure.
The SEC has sought a four-month extension in its investigation related to Coinbase, pushing the deadline to February 2024, just after the US presidential election.
DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest financial institution, has teamed up with Boerse Stuttgart Digital to offer cryptocurrency trading and custody services across its network of cooperative banks.
Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, will meet with Argentina’s President Javier Milei in October to discuss blockchain’s role in shaping future economies.
Binance has seen a sharp rise in interest from institutional and corporate investors, with a 40% increase in participation this year, according to CEO Richard Teng.