Nvidia’s $2 billion bet on CoreWeave sent a clear signal to markets on Monday: the race for AI compute is accelerating — and that sent shares of several bitcoin miners-turned-AI-hosts sliding. What happened Nvidia announced a $2 billion investment in CoreWeave, a specialist cloud provider for high-performance GPU compute. The deal underlines soaring demand for AI infrastructure but also crystallizes a competitive disadvantage for smaller bitcoin miners that have been trying to repurpose their data centers for AI workloads. Market reaction Stocks of miners pivoting to AI fell sharply. Cipher Mining (CIFR), CleanSpark (CLSK), IREN (IREN) and TeraWulf (WULF) each dropped roughly 5%–9% after the news. CleanSpark was hit the hardest, down about 9% as investors weighed both operational and governance concerns. By contrast, Core Scientific (CORZ) and Hut 8 (HUT) bucked the trend: CORZ was up just under 2% in late-morning trading and HUT rose about 0.2%. Why investors sold Analysts say the Nvidia–CoreWeave tie-up could divert GPU allocation and capital toward a tightly integrated player with deep vendor backing, tightening the market for independents. “This could potentially diminish funding prospects for independent miners seeking to pivot into AI infrastructure,” said James Van Straten, senior bitcoin analyst at CoinDesk. He noted CoreWeave’s $53 billion market capitalization is already roughly half the peak valuation of the entire bitcoin-AI mining sector in October, and argued that consolidation in the space looks increasingly likely. CleanSpark’s drop was amplified by specific concerns, according to Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets at VanEck. Markets appeared to price in outage risk related to its Tennessee exposure amid recent state power headlines — even though the firm’s sites are in designated grid green zones — and a proxy filing that disclosed an approximately $45 million CEO pay package for 2025 raised governance questions as the company pivots toward AI. Winners and gray areas Core Scientific’s modest gain comes despite CoreWeave’s failed attempt to acquire CORZ in 2025; the companies still maintain a multi-year data center deal. Hut 8, which has also expanded into AI hosting and high-performance computing, appears to be seen as better positioned to capture AI compute demand, giving it a slight edge. Bigger picture The move highlights a broader shift that’s been underway for months: bitcoin miners are transforming mining facilities into general-purpose compute centers as block rewards compress and power costs rise. Nvidia’s investment makes it clearer that capital and GPUs may increasingly be funneled to larger, vertically integrated AI hosts — forcing smaller miners to either double down, find niche customers, or consolidate. For the crypto and infrastructure markets, the Nvidia–CoreWeave partnership looks like a signpost of the next phase in the AI-compute arms race — one that could reshape who wins access to the GPUs that power the era of large-scale AI. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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