Bitcoin miners are increasingly being forced to weigh mining against artificial intelligence as AI infrastructure begins delivering stronger returns, according to CoinShares. The shift is occurring even as the U.S. continues to expand its share of the global Bitcoin hash rate.
CoinShares’ Q1 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report found that Bitcoin mining hash price fell to roughly $29-$30 per petahash per second per day during early Q1, down from about $36-$38 in Q4 2025.
At the same time, the research firm expects AI infrastructure to become a much larger part of miners’ businesses. By the end of 2026, as much as 70% of revenue at listed miners could come from AI infrastructure, compared with roughly 30% today.
Mining economics were already under pressure in late 2025. CoinShares estimated the weighted-average cash cost of producing one Bitcoin for publicly listed miners at around $79,995 in Q4.
The competition between Bitcoin mining and AI is increasingly centered on access to electricity, data-center space and capital. CoinShares said AI infrastructure generally provides miners with higher and more predictable returns while Bitcoin hash prices remain near cyclical lows.
That dynamic is encouraging companies with large power supplies and existing data-center facilities to dedicate more of their resources to high-performance computing.
U.S. mining remains strong
The growing interest in AI should not be interpreted as a broad withdrawal from Bitcoin mining in the United States.
CoinShares reported that the U.S. share of the global Bitcoin hash rate increased by approximately two percentage points from the previous quarter.
Instead, the industry is undergoing a shift in how infrastructure is deployed. Some publicly traded miners are adding AI capacity while continuing to operate Bitcoin mining businesses, leaving mining as an important but increasingly margin-sensitive part of their operations.
AI is competing directly with Bitcoin miners for rack space, electricity and investment. This could eventually push mining operators toward cheaper and more flexible sources of power.
Publicly listed miners have announced more than $70 billion worth of AI and HPC contracts. The capital requirements for the two types of infrastructure are also dramatically different. Bitcoin mining facilities generally cost between $700,000 and $1 million per megawatt, while AI infrastructure can cost approximately $8 million-$15 million per megawatt.
Several companies demonstrate how significant the transition has become.
Core Scientific has roughly 350 megawatts energized for HPC, with about 200 megawatts already billed. Its CoreWeave agreement has grown to $10.2 billion over a 12-year period.
TeraWulf has 39 megawatts of critical IT capacity operating at Lake Mariner and has secured $12.8 billion in contracted HPC revenue.
IREN has expanded its operations to more than 10,900 Nvidia GPUs, while Hut 8 has signed a $7 billion, 15-year Fluidstack lease covering 245 megawatts at its River Bend campus.
AI-related revenue is still developing for most mining companies, but its contribution is already noticeable. CoinShares said AI/HPC colocation represented 39% of Core Scientific’s Q4 revenue and 27% of TeraWulf’s.
IREN generated 9% of its revenue from its AI Cloud business, while HIVE’s HPC operations contributed 5%.
The companies are not following an identical strategy. CoinShares said IREN and Bitfarms are positioning themselves more heavily as HPC providers, with Bitcoin mining serving as a bridge during the transition.
CleanSpark remains focused primarily on mining in the near term while building its AI operations. Marathon has focused on smaller containerized facilities of roughly 10 megawatts, which can be useful for utilizing intermittent power.
This flexibility is one of Bitcoin mining’s advantages. Mining operations can tolerate temporary power interruptions, whereas AI workloads generally require much closer to continuous uptime.
Hash prices remain a problem
CoinShares called Q4 2025 the most difficult quarter for miners since the April 2024 Bitcoin halving.
A major Bitcoin price correction, a near-record hash rate and three consecutive negative difficulty adjustments combined to squeeze miners’ margins. It was the first three-adjustment negative streak since July 2022.
The weakness extended into Q1 2026. Hash price briefly fell to about $28 per PH/s per day toward the end of February before recovering to approximately $30-$35.
CoinShares expects additional high-cost miners to capitulate during the first half of 2026 if Bitcoin does not recover. Mid-generation machines need electricity costs below 5 cents per kilowatt-hour to remain profitable, while newer equipment operating below 15 J/TH can maintain healthier margins at standard industrial power prices.
The AI transition is also complicating the way mining companies report their economics.
For hybrid operators, costs associated with AI facilities, including debt, depreciation and overhead, can affect calculations of the cost per Bitcoin when production from mining declines. This can make it increasingly difficult to separate traditional mining economics from data-center economics.
Core Scientific’s failed CoreWeave merger demonstrated some of those challenges. Shareholders rejected the transaction on Oct. 30, 2025. CoinShares also noted that Core Scientific subsequently restated its financial statements after improperly capitalizing assets that were scheduled to be demolished as part of its HPC conversion.
Bitcoin price could determine the next move
CoinShares said Bitcoin would likely need to approach $100,000 by the end of 2026 for hash price to sustain a recovery above $40 per PH/s per day. Bitcoin’s price would also need to rise faster than the network’s continuing hash-rate expansion.
If Bitcoin stays below $80,000 through the remainder of the year, hash prices could face further declines if mining difficulty continues climbing. However, shutdowns by less-profitable miners could eventually lower the network hash rate and reduce some of the pressure.
CoinShares said it is still too early to determine whether the AI pivot will become a permanent transformation of the mining industry.
Bitcoin mining remains highly sensitive to BTC prices. A meaningful recovery in mining profitability could encourage some operators to redirect capital back toward mining rather than AI and HPC.
For now, the report views the transition largely as a response to differences in returns rather than evidence that miners are permanently abandoning Bitcoin.
Operators with access to low-cost electricity and flexible power arrangements may continue to find mining attractive, especially at facilities that are better suited to intermittent energy than the near-continuous power requirements of AI workloads.
