According to a report by JPMorgan, Bitcoin miners are looking for new ways to make money as the upcoming halving event will cut their rewards in half and increase the difficulty of mining cryptocurrencies.
The report, released on Thursday, stated that some cryptocurrency miners are trying to enter the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) market, which requires high-performance computing power (HPC) services.
According to the report, by providing HPC services to artificial intelligence developers, miners can use advanced computer hardware and generate more revenue from mining Bitcoin alone.
The report also stated that some former Ethereum miners, which lost their functionality after the network transitioned from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, started to offer HPC services using graphics cards (GPU). GPUs are widely used for both cryptocurrency mining and AI development, especially for training large language models.
The following statements were used in the report:
“Advanced computer hardware is required for both cryptocurrency mining and artificial intelligence development. With the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, the increasing demand for HPC opens up a new and perhaps more profitable way to evaluate GPUs previously used for Ethereum mining.”
The report cited Bitcoin miners and ex-Ethereum miners who were beta-testing the delivery of HPC services using a small subset of the total GPU hardware. The report noted that these beta tests show high earnings per unit power consumption, well above the profitability from BTC mining.
The report also noted that Russia is an attractive destination for BTC miners due to its cheap energy sources and cold climate, which helps reduce cooling costs. JPMorgan analysts announced that energy producers in Russia are struggling due to the war in Ukraine and the economic slowdown that has caused a huge energy surplus in the country.
*Not investment advice.
