Bitcoin miners with the fitting infrastructure and administration expertise can acquire substantial worth by pivoting into the booming AI and HPC knowledge middle market, analysts say.
As demand for AI infrastructure grows, crypto miners with entry to energy and cooling may very well be properly positioned to revenue from supporting high-performance computing workloads, based on a Galaxy Digital analysis report.
The analysts consider miners with skilled administration groups able to executing AI and HPC buildouts have a “super alternative” to carry “important incremental worth to their firms.” The enchantment lies within the long-term contracts and robust, regular money stream fashions of AI and HPC colocation — described by Galaxy Digital as “predictable and excessive margin money stream streams” — a stage of stability that’s usually missing in crypto markets.
“Not solely is income extra predictable than Bitcoin mining, it’s additionally uncorrelated to crypto markets, which smooths income profiles of firms with excessive publicity to the risky crypto markets. In Bitcoin bear markets, this may improve monetary stability, permitting miners to proceed to lift money by way of fairness or debt with out incurring extreme dilution or curiosity burden.”
Galaxy Digital
Financing choices are additionally increasing. Knowledge middle operators which have a lease in hand with a credit score worthy counterparty “can take that lease and lift substantial sums of undertaking financing to assemble the information middle,” Galaxy wrote, citing $18 billion in growth financing underwritten in Q1 2024 alone.
You may additionally like: Bitcoin miners face mounting stress from tools tariffs and ETF demand: Bitwise
The valuation hole is one other key issue, with the report noting that Bitcoin (BTC) miners have sometimes traded at six to 12 occasions their earnings, whereas a few of the world’s largest knowledge middle operators are valued at 20 to 25 occasions earnings.
Key AI knowledge middle vs mining knowledge middle variations | Supply: Galaxy Digital
Nonetheless, not all crypto mining websites are match for the shift, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital wrote, noting that some might not have the fitting situations for AI and high-performance computing, even when they nonetheless work properly for Bitcoin mining.
With U.S. knowledge middle capability anticipated to greater than double by 2030, Galaxy says miners who adapt now may turn out to be “a few of the largest operators within the trade.”
Learn extra: Galaxy Digital proposes new voting framework to cut back Solana inflation
