Mining Companies in Q2: Scrambling for AI Data Centers, Did Miners Make Money?

Second-quarter earnings from bitcoin miners showed a split picture. Traditional mining revenue remained under pressure from lower bitcoin prices and higher network difficulty, even where companies mined more coins than a year earlier. MARA and Riot both increased production but still saw revenue and profitability weaken, while Bitdeer expanded output and revenue yet still posted a gross loss and net loss after accounting for operating and expansion costs.

At the same time, the article shows that AI and data center hosting are becoming a larger part of the business model for some miners. Core Scientific made the clearest shift, with high-density hosting revenue far exceeding its self-mining revenue. TeraWulf also derived most of its quarterly revenue from HPC leasing, though mining still contributed. Riot's data center revenue was growing, but it had not yet replaced mining as the main source of income.

The report also stresses that building capacity is not the same as recognizing revenue. Cipher had only begun delivering capacity for its Black Pearl project in early August, so that income was not yet reflected in the second quarter. Hut 8 reported higher revenue from its compute business, but that category included multiple activities, so not all of it could be treated as AI revenue.

For markets, the overall message is mixed. The shift toward AI data centers and HPC hosting is potentially supportive for miner equities that can convert infrastructure into steady service revenue. For bitcoin itself, the article's earnings data are more neutral, since they mainly reflect company-level cost pressures rather than a direct change in crypto demand or supply.