Bitcoin is up 14% in 2025, but mining stocks have surged over 150% as firms shift focus to AI and HPC

Crypto mining companies are running laps around Bitcoin in 2025. And this time, it’s not because they’re flipping their entire business models.

The same companies that built the backbone of Bitcoin are now doubling down on artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. And Wall Street’s rewarding it. While Bitcoin is up roughly 14% this year, publicly traded miners are beating that by a mile, with some posting gains of over 500% year-to-date.

This is a full-on transformation, as we’re watching the old mining model (burn energy, win coins) being reworked in real time. These guys are being priced like tech infrastructure companies, because that’s exactly what they’re becoming.

According to Bloomberg, a fund tracking listed miners has surged more than 150% year-to-date, while Bitcoin itself is still climbing back toward its early-month peak of almost $126,000.

And of course, that rally started right as the second Trump administration openly backed several pro-crypto bills.

Cipher and IREN dive into AI data centers

Cipher Mining Inc. and IREN Ltd. are leading the charge. Shares of Cipher have jumped nearly 300% this year. IREN’s stock has spiked by around 500%. Both companies are moving beyond basic mining and into the world of AI compute hosting.

Cipher signed a 10-year, $3 billion colocation agreement with Fluidstack, a firm that counts Google among its backers. As part of that deal, Fluidstack locked in $1.4 billion in lease commitments and grabbed warrants representing 5.4% of Cipher’s equity. That deal only proved that mining firms are now reallocating power to AI, not just hashrate.

IREN just closed a $1 billion convertible notes offering on Wednesday, showing how quickly traditional miners are now pulling in capital to fund infrastructure over mining rigs. Over in New York, TeraWulf Inc. is going even bigger.

The company is issuing $3.2 billion in senior secured notes to scale up its Lake Mariner data center in Barker. The goal? Handle both mining and AI processing from a single base.

Bitdeer Technologies Group, based in Singapore, is doing the same. It jumped nearly 30% this week after detailing plans to turn major mining sites (including its 570-megawatt Clarington, Ohio facility) into full-blown AI compute centers. If things go right, the company says it could pull in over $2 billion in annualized revenue by 2026.

Jeff LaBerge, Bitdeer’s vice president of capital markets and strategy, said the company isn’t quitting mining but will convert qualified sites where “long-term returns are durable.”

Halving, high energy costs force miners to shift compute strategy

But this whole transition really started after the 2024 Bitcoin halving slashed block rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 Bitcoin, squeezing miners’ revenues. Add in rising network difficulty and sluggish transaction volumes, and profits started drying up fast.

Even with Bitcoin prices pushing new highs, unit economics aren’t working like they used to. Power’s expensive. Returns are uncertain. So miners are starting to redirect energy away from mining and into AI.

Wolfie Zhao, analyst at TheMinerMag, said companies like Riot Platforms, IREN, and Bitfarms have already decided not to expand their hashrate in the near term. Instead of chasing more hashpower, they’re looking at how to better use the power they already have. “The focus is shifting from ‘how much hashrate can we add’ to ‘how efficiently can we utilize our energy footprint,’” Zhao said. He added that mining and computing now share the same energy economy, meaning both are competing for the same megawatts.

John Todaro, analyst at Needham & Co., said the economics are clear: “The revenue per megawatt and EBITDA margins are far higher for HPC and AI colocation than for mining.” And that shift isn’t lost on capital markets either.

John pointed out that with Bitcoin’s volatility and halving risks, investors are giving much higher valuation multiples to firms focusing on AI data centers rather than pure mining.

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