Jackson Hole, Wyoming. – Bitcoin miners have long been defined by the boom and bust rhythm of a half-cycle of four years. But the game has changed, according to some of the industry’s most well-known executives at the Salt Conference held at Jackson Hole earlier this week.
The outlook for increased funds traded on exchanges, surge in demand for power, and the need for artificial intelligence (AI) reform means miners must find ways to risk diversifying or being left behind.
“We used to come here and talk about hashrates,” said Matt Schultz, CEO of CleanSpark. “Now we’re talking about how to monetize megawatts.”
For years, mining companies derive the main source of revenue from bitcoin mining alone, but were caused and died from a four-year Bitcoin harving cycle. All cycles, rewards were cut in half, and miners scrambled to reduce costs or scaled up to survive. But according to these executives, that rhythm no longer defines business.
“The four-year cycle will effectively be destroyed, along with the ETF and now the Strategic Treasury, due to Bitcoin’s maturation as a strategic asset,” Schultz says. “The adoption is driving demand. If you read anything about the latest ETFs, they’ve consumed far more Bitcoin than they’ve generated so far this year.”
Currently operating an 800 megawatt energy infrastructure and an additional 1.2 gigawatts under development, CleanSpark is beginning to draw attention beyond the proof of work. “The speed of selling on electricity has created an opportunity to allow us to consider ways to monetize electricity beyond Bitcoin mining,” he said. “With 33 locations, it’s now much more flexible than ever.”
Brutal business
Schultz not only brings monumental changes to the industry in its business model.
Terawulf’s CFO, Patrick Fleury, did not try to reflect emotions and narrow down the profits miners are feeling now and pour sugar on them.
“Bitcoin mining is a very difficult business,” he said. He broke the economics of Bitcoin mining in simple terms. At a power price of 5 cents per kilowatt hour, it currently costs around $60,000 to mine one Bitcoin. At a Bitcoin price of $115,000, it means that half of the revenue is consumed through electricity alone. When corporate and other operating expenses are taken into consideration, the margins will be tightened quickly. In his view, mining profitability is almost completely hinged to ensure very low cost power.
For Fleury, electricity costs aren’t the only deeper problem. It is a relentless expansion of the network itself driven by hardware manufacturers, with little incentive to slow down.
He pointed out Bitmain, which continues to produce mining rigs regardless of market demand thanks to a direct pipeline to chip makers like TSMC. Even if miners aren’t buying it, the company can deploy the machine itself in areas with ultra-stable electricity, from the US to Pakistan. Coupled with low production costs, its global footprint allows Bitmain to remain profitable while narrowing down the margins of everyone else.
Still, Terawulf is actively pivoting. Last week, they signed a $6.7 billion lease collateral agreement with Google, converting hundreds of megawatts of mining infrastructure into data center space.
“These things should not move right away, like electrical infrastructure, so everyone can prove here,” Fleury said. “Tech is used to moving quickly and breaking things, but these deals take a very long time to come together. It took a very intense due diligence of four to five months.”
“The thing I’m most proud of in the transaction is that I actually work with these partners to become something that the industry can replicate in other companies,” he said. “Google offers $3.2 billion backstop lease mandatory support to Terawulf.
Profitability – or patience
Kent Draper, chief commercial officer at Aylen, took a quiet and confident attitude. His company profitably mines Bitcoin – he said even today. Still, he pointed out one general denominator, Power.
“Being a low-cost producer is essentially important and that’s what has always been our focus on our business. It’s in an area that controls our site, has operational control and is a low-cost electricity jurisdiction,” Draper said.
He said Aylen currently operates at 50 Exahash, converting it to an annual revenue occupancy rate of $1 billion under the current Bitcoin market conditions. He said the company’s total margin (from revenue to power cost) was 75%, accounting for the company’s overhead and SG&A costs, but Iren maintains an EBITDA margin of 65%, or about $650 million in annual revenue.
Still, even Aylen has paused mining expansion. “This is really determined not by the basic view that Bitcoin mining is no longer attractive, but by the opportunity set seen on the AI side today and the possibility of truly diversifying the revenue streams within the business,” says Draper.
On the AI side, Aylen pursues both colocation and cloud. “The capital strength is very different,” Draper said. “If you own GPUs on top of your data center infrastructure, that’s three times the investment. On the cloud side, the payback period tends to be faster.
Hold Bitcoin – and Line
For Marathon Digital (Mara) CFO Salman Khan, survival is agility. For decades in the oil industry, Khan has seen familiar patterns: boom, bust, integration, and constant race for efficient maintenance.
“This reminds me of these trends in the cycle industry that have been exposed to products,” Khan said. “There are very wealthy families in the oil sector that have made billions, and there are other families who have filed bankruptcy. You have to have a strong balance sheet to survive these cycles.”
The marathon holds Bitcoin on its balance sheet. That Khan said he had been rewarded. “We’re not a finance company, not a strategy, but we like to have that hedge if the price of Bitcoin escalates.”
More recently, the Marathon has announced a majority stake in Exion. “The angle on the AI front is calculated at the edge,” Khan said. “We like sovereign computers. This gives people better control over their data in nearby locations. We like the recurring side of revenue that comes with it. We also like the software side and the platform side.”
Beyond Bitcoin, behind the grid
Despite the different perspectives and strategies, it all comes down to one general factor: power. Whether it was used to balance bitcoin, power AI or electric grids, energy, not hashrate, was the currency of conversation.
“We reduce energy consumption by 120 hours a year,” says Schultz of Cleanspark. “It avoids about a third of the total energy cost, so flexible loads are important.”
Cleanspark added that the past year has spent quietly locking megawatts across the country. “You mentioned Georgia,” Schultz said. “There’s 100 megawatts surrounding Atlanta Airport. That’s a prime example. It focuses on becoming a valuable partner for some of these country utilities, monetizing the marginalized megawatts.”
Still about Bitcoin – For now
Despite focusing on AI, the panelists have revealed that Bitcoin is at the heart of the business for now. When asked why mining companies deserve investors’ attention, the answer pointed to scale, cost-effectiveness, and ability to survive volatility.
Fleury emphasized that Terrawolf’s contracted power capacity generates significant cash flow and allows economics to be compared to well-established data center operators. Khan points out a disconnect between the marathon Bitcoin Holdings and its market valuation, suggesting that the core mining business is being overlooked. Draper highlights Iren’s operational efficiency and low-cost footprint, citing recent performance metrics that outperform the company’s other public miners.
And while it could include cloud infrastructure and edge computing in the future, Schultz argued that Bitcoin itself could evolve into something even bigger. This is the foundation of the energy system. As he said, the next step may not be about speculation, but about Bitcoin’s role in balancing the power network.
Read more: Hashrate Hit Record: Bitcoin Mining Costs Surge as Theminermag
