Shares of AI infrastructure company CoreWeave surged more than 12% on Friday, April 10, 2026, after announcing a multi-year agreement with AI developer Anthropic. Anthropic will use CoreWeave's cloud computing data centers to run workloads for its Claude AI model. The deal, which will be rolled out in phases with potential for expansion, follows CoreWeave's recent $8.5 billion capital raise led by Meta Platforms.
This pivot to AI is creating significant economic headwinds for the Bitcoin mining industry. CoreWeave itself rebranded from crypto mining to AI infrastructure in 2019 amid sector pressure. Now, the broader trend is accelerating as AI data centers compete directly with Bitcoin miners for critical resources, primarily electricity. Market analyst Ran Neuner noted, "Both industries compete for the same thing: electricity, and right now, AI is willing to pay much more for it."
The economic environment for Bitcoin miners has deteriorated sharply. According to asset manager CoinShares' latest mining report, up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are currently unprofitable. Miners face a triple threat of rising energy costs, reduced block rewards (the Halving), and declining crypto asset prices since the October 2025 market crash, which saw Bitcoin fall from a high of around $126,000 to the low $60,000s before stabilizing near $73,000.
These shrinking profit margins are forcing miners to explore alternatives. Market maker Wintermute suggests miners must generate yield by deploying crypto on DeFi platforms to shore up revenues. More significantly, many are repurposing their high-performance computing hardware away from mining and towards more lucrative AI processing workloads, threatening the long-term hash rate and security of the Bitcoin network.
