AI Could Suck Air Out Of US Bitcoin Mining Industry

President Donald Trump’s goal to win the artificial intelligence race may be working against his other mission to have America lead in Bitcoin mining.

AI spending has soared to an astronomical level, which has pushed publicly-listed Bitcoin mining companies — that provide processing power to generate new coins and confirm transactions — to pivot toward providing processing for AI. Now, many of these companies make most of their money from AI instead of crypto, according to Bloomberg.

Bitcoin mining now uses 18% less power compared to October 2025 and mining is shifting toward Russia and China, the outlet reported.

“The largest decline is for US-publicly listed companies, as they turn to deploy their energy into AI,” Ethan Vera, the chief operating officer of Luxor, a crypto mining provider, told Bloomberg. “We expect this trend to continue.”

Trump said in 2024 that he wanted every Bitcoin “made, mined and minted” in the United States, according to the outlet.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

China historically dominated Bitcoin mining due to cheap energy and access to Bitcoin mining machines produced in the country such as Bitmain. However, its leaders cracked down on domestic Bitcoin mining, which led America gain market share in Bitcoin mining, through which publicly-listed miners such as MARA Holdings and Riot Platforms ramped up their operations.

However, some data center providers believe that Bitcoin mining and AI processing can complement each other.

“AI compute facilities can use Bitcoin mining as a complement to their primary purpose, to both monetize more megawatts and provide grid stability services. The Bitcoin network’s decentralization means operators can ramp up or down their mining activity depending on the needs of the grid,” Brian Morgenstern, the senior vice president of Riot Platforms and a former Trump administration official, told the DCNF.

“My understanding is that there’s still going to be a pretty sizable chunk of Bitcoin mining in the U.S. for years because it takes years to build the AI facilities, and so if you’ve already got a bunch of buildings mining Bitcoin there, you’ll probably leave them up for a while while you build the AI buildings, and then if they need more demand, you kind of start taking down the Bitcoin mining buildings in a phased way,” Morgenstern added.

Bitcoin mining can become the most efficient way to monetize power during off-peak hours, Jim Ferraioli, director of digital currencies research and strategy at Charles Schwab, wrote in May.

Riot signed a $9 billion, 20-year deal with Anthropic in August to provide 191 megawatts of power for Anthropic’s needs, per CNBC.

Many Bitcoin mining companies have transitioned to providing processing power for AI.

Auradine, a California crypto mining hardware startup, rebranded as Velaura AI and started producing a new chip design for AI processing.

“It became clear that power and energy efficiency are becoming among the most important constraints in AI data centers as well as in emerging physical AI applications,” Rajiv Khemani, cofounder and CEO of Velaura, told Bloomberg.

Some crypto mining companies believe that advancing AI and processing Bitcoin transactions does not inherently conflict.

Bitdeer, the Singapore-based crypto hardware company, said it would invest $36 million to build 10,000 Bitcoin mining machines in the United States.

“We still see Bitcoin mining as a core pillar,” Retainna Lin, vice president of Bitdeer AI, told Bloomberg.

“AI is definitely where the economics are leading all these companies, and that’s okay. That’s how the market works. I think there’s a place for Bitcoin mining as a complement on those facilities too — certainly, as a grid stability tool, but I think also economically,” Morgenstern told the DCNF.