Former Bitcoin miners have signed $133bn in AI data-centre deals as falling Bitcoin prices push them to find other sources of revenue, but more than two-thirds of the contracts are held by just three companies.
Three Bitcoin Miners Control Two-Thirds of Sector's AI Deals
23 July 2026 - 23:26 CEST
By Ana Pereira
Applied Digital, TeraWulf and Hut 8 hold a combined $89.7bn of contracted revenue, or about 67% of the total tracked by research firm Bernstein as of 23 Jul. Applied Digital led with $36.2bn in contracted revenue, followed by TeraWulf at $26.9bn and Hut 8 at $26.6bn.
Bernstein estimates former Bitcoin miners have signed more than 20 AI infrastructure deals covering about 7.5GW of gross power capacity and worth more than $150bn in total. That figure includes roughly $133bn of colocation contracts, under which miners lease powered data-centre capacity, as well as AI cloud agreements involving computing services and GPU infrastructure. Only around 600MW, or 12% of contracted IT capacity, has so far been delivered, leaving much of the projected revenue dependent on construction and energization through 2028.
"Bitcoin miners are not given enough credit for execution — we are seeing a pattern of on-time delivery driven by years of experience in managing construction, labour and the power equipment supply chain," Bernstein analysts led by Gautam Chhugani wrote in the 23 Jul note. "We are overweight on the sector, although, we are watching closely for which management teams break out on execution and durable client relationships."
Galaxy's order book stood at $15bn, while Cipher's at $11.3bn and Core Scientific's at $10bn. CleanSpark, which signed its first AI colocation agreement in July, had $6.6bn, while Riot Platforms had $600mn.
The push into AI has accelerated as weaker Bitcoin prices squeeze mining economics, where revenue fluctuates with BTC price while electricity and equipment costs remain substantial. Bitcoin was trading near $65,000 on 23 Jul, about 48% below its October record of roughly $126,000.
Order book leaders
Applied Digital held the largest amount of contracted IT capacity among the companies tracked, at 1,410MW. Hut 8 had 949MW under contract and TeraWulf had 839MW, compared with 590MW for Core Scientific, 526MW for Galaxy Digital and 493MW for Cipher Mining.
The durability question
The debate is not how big the order book is but how long it lasts. Anthropic - which signed a $19bn lease with TeraWulf - said in November it would spend $50bn on its own data centres in Texas and New York with partner Fluidstack, and has weighed securing 10GW or more of capacity over the coming years. That makes the durability of the miners' order book a live question: it only pays off if tenants still need someone else's buildings when their leases deliver in 2027 and 2028.
Bernstein's argument is that the miners are not really selling data centres - they are selling a head start on power. Years spent chasing cheap electricity for Bitcoin left companies sitting on grid connections and energized sites that a new developer would wait years to secure.
"Our industry deals tracker for miners has seen a new deal every week in July," Bernstein said. "We believe, the 'time to power' and GW-scale power pipeline (with future energization schedules extending till 2028-2030) is even more valuable given the supply constraints amid rising political backlash to data centers."
Leaving mining behind
Some of the miners have said plainly they intend to leave Bitcoin behind. TeraWulf told investors on its Q1 2026 earnings call that it aims to exit mining altogether by the next Bitcoin halving - when the reward miners earn for adding a block to the Bitcoin blockchain is cut in half. It last happened in Apr 2024, dropping the reward from 6.25 to 3.125 Bitcoin per block, and the next is expected in early 2028, taking it to about 1.5625.
Core Scientific put it more dramactically: chief executive Adam Sullivan says the company is now "a data center business at heart" and expects "every megawatt in our portfolio to be dedicated to colocation within the next three years," a shift it partly financed by selling roughly 1,900 Bitcoin for about $175mn in 2025.
Not all are walking away. The largest of these players by power, IREN, is keeping Bitcoin as a shrinking sideline while it scales its AI cloud business. Bernstein expects IREN's AI cloud revenue to exceed $6bn by 2030.
