As if the continued decline in Bitcoin prices wasn’t enough, shares of most Bitcoin miners, which pivoted their business plans to focus on AI infrastructure following Nvidia’s $2 billion investment in CoreWeave, fell sharply on Monday.
While this investment highlights the growing demand for high-performance computing as AI applications expand, it also highlights the challenges for independent miners seeking to re-establish themselves as infrastructure providers in this space.
Stocks such as Cipher Mining (CIFR), CleanSpark (CLSK), IREN (IREN), and TeraWulf (WULF) fell 5% to 9% on the news.
The decline reflects investor concerns that CoreWeave’s growing lead in the AI infrastructure market could limit upside for other players.
“Today’s decline in the overall AI and HPC segment associated with Bitcoin miners points to the NVIDIA and CoreWeave partnership, which increasingly prioritizes GPU allocation for that partnership,” said James Van Straten, senior Bitcoin analyst at CoinDesk. “This could reduce funding prospects for independent miners looking to transform to AI infrastructure. The $2 billion capital injection will significantly expand CoreWeave’s AI computing capacity, which will increase competition and squeeze both profits and market share for smaller players.”
Van Straten also pointed out that CoreWeave’s market capitalization of $53 billion is already half of the highest valuation of the entire Bitcoin AI mining sector in October.
“As with any mature industry, consolidation is now increasingly inevitable,” he said.
Additionally, Matthew Siegel, VanEck’s head of digital assets, said CLSK fell about 9% as the market priced in the power outage risk associated with the Tennessee exposure following state-level power reports, even though CLSK’s site is in a grid green zone. Siegel said the drop was compounded by a proxy filing that pegged the 2025 CEO compensation package at about $45 million, raising concerns about governance as the company pivots to AI.
The only stock with a significant gain on Monday was Core Scientific (CORZ). CoreWeave attempted to acquire CORZ in 2025 but failed, but the two companies still have a multi-year data center agreement. Shares were up less than 2% in late morning trading.
Hut 8 (HUT), another miner that has diversified into AI hosting and high-performance computing, has also outperformed. Together with Core Scientific, HUT also provides infrastructure tailored for large-scale AI applications, giving it a competitive edge as computing demands skyrocket. HUT stock rose 0.2%.
The move to AI is not new. Bitcoin miners, once dedicated to validating blockchain transactions, have begun repurposing their data centers for more profitable workloads, especially as mining rewards shrink and power costs rise.
But NVIDIA’s latest move suggests that these resources will increasingly flow to larger, more tightly integrated players like CoreWeave, potentially forcing smaller companies to adapt or consolidate.