As if continuing declines in the bitcoin price weren’t enough, shares of bitcoin miners who have shifted their business plan to focus on AI infrastructure were mostly sharply lower Monday following Nvidia’s $2 billion investment in CoreWeave.
While the investment underscores growing demand for high-performance computing as AI applications expand, it also highlights the challenges for independent miners trying to reposition themselves as infrastructure providers in the space.
Cipher Mining (CIFR), CleanSpark (CLSK), IREN (IREN), and TeraWulf (WULF) were among names 5%-9% lower following the news.
The drop reflects investor concern that CoreWeave’s growing lead in the AI infrastructure market could limit the upside for other players.
“The declines across the AI and HPC segment tied to bitcoin miners today signal a commitment between NVIDIA and CoreWeave, with GPU allocation increasingly prioritized toward that partnership,” said James Van Straten, senior bitcoin analyst at CoinDesk. “This could potentially diminish funding prospects for independent miners seeking to pivot into AI infrastructure. The $2 billion capital injection is set to materially expand AI compute capacity for CoreWeave, which would intensify competition and squeeze both margins and market share for smaller players.”
Van Straten also noted that CoreWeave’s $53 billion market cap is already half the peak valuation of the entire bitcoin-AI mining sector in October.
“As with any maturing industry, consolidation now appears increasingly inevitable,” he said.
In addition, Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets at VanEck says CLSK fell about 9% as markets priced in perceived outage risk tied to its Tennessee exposure after state level power headlines, despite its sites being in grid green zones. The drop was compounded by a proxy filing that quantified a roughly $45 million CEO pay package for 2025, raising governance concerns as the firm pivots toward AI, according to Sigel.
The only name showing a sizable gain on Monday is Core Scientific (CORZ). Although CoreWeave tried and failed to acquire CORZ in 2025, the two still continue to have a multi-year data center deal. Shares are higher by just shy of 2% in late-morning trade.
Also outperforming is Hut 8 (HUT), another miner that has diversified into AI hosting and high-performance computing. Along with Core Scientific, HUT also offers infrastructure tailored to large-scale AI applications, giving it a competitive edge as demand for compute surges. HUT shares are higher by 0.2%.
The shift toward AI isn’t new. Bitcoin miners, once singularly focused on validating blockchain transactions, have been repurposing their data centers for more profitable workloads, particularly as mining rewards shrink and power costs rise.
Nvidia’s latest move, however, suggests those resources may increasingly flow to larger, more tightly integrated players like CoreWeave, forcing smaller firms to adapt or consolidate.
Source: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/26/here-are-the-winners-and-losers-from-nvidia-s-usd2b-coreweave-investment
