CoreWeave, a public Bitcoin miner that ditched Bitcoin for an AI venture, is winning big. According to Blocksbridge Consulting, CoreWeave’s successful $8.5 billion GPU-backed loan has confirmed the AI boom or ‘ComputeFi’ and, by extension, the death of ‘MinerFi.’
The research examined the 2021 Bitcoin mining boom, which collapsed hard as BTC’s price fell while hashrate (computation power and number of miners) surged.
At the end of the 2021 cycle, the resale value of old ASICs (rigs used to mine BTC) fell and the BTC price crash exacerbated the situation.
In contrast, the newer mining hardware, which includes Nvidia’s GPU (general processing units) could easily be repurposed for other things. Especially as AI’s demands for data processing and power balloon.
As a result, most miners with the latest hardware during the current cycle have either partially or wholly pivoted to AI with ease.
Others like MARA have been forced to liquidate their BTC holdings to fund these pivots. However, players such as CoreWeave have opted for GPU-backed loans, which use the computing racks as collateral.
In fact, CoreWeave’s $8.5 billion is unprecedented because it is the largest loan facility ever to be made using the computing racks as collateral in the sector.
And the ‘ComputeFi’ upside doesn’t stop at expanded funding capacity either.
Will AI shift deepen among Bitcoin miners?
According to the research firm, ‘ComputeFi’ has solved the speculative nature of the ‘minerFi’ problem.
In the latest cycle, BTC and crypto have gone mainstream. In fact, most banks and asset managers now allow investors to borrow against their crypto holdings. However, the overall profitability has strained the sustainability of BTC mining.
Apart from the 2024 halving of block rewards, BTC’s pullback has dragged daily miner revenue from over $50M in 2025 to below $40M in 2026.
In such a distressed environment, even capable and active miners wishing to pivot to AI strictly using their BTC revenues may face a challenge.
On the contrary, CoreWeave made $5.13 billion in revenue in 2025 – Marking a 168% annual growth. For MARA, which has partially shifted to AI, the generated revenue hit $907 million, hinting at a 38% surge. However, it also suffered a 1.3 billion loss on its BTC holdings during the crypto winter.
Given the declining miner revenue, the ongoing shift to AI among public miners may not ease anytime soon.
Final Summary
- CoreWeave’s $8.5B loan backed by computing hardware could set the model for future financing of AI ventures.
- AI shift has also been viewed as more sustainable than the speculative nature of BTC mining.
