The bitcoin mining industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation, with the industry shifting towards artificial intelligence infrastructure. The Q1 2026 mining report revealed that the weighted average cash cost to produce one bitcoin among publicly listed miners rose to approximately $79,995 in Q4 2025. Over $70 billion in cumulative AI and high-performance computing contracts have been announced across the public mining sector, including CoreWeave's expanded deal with Core Scientific worth $10.2 billion over 12 years and TeraWulf's $12.8 billion in contracted HPC revenue. These companies are increasingly becoming data center operators that still mine bitcoin on the side. The transition is financed by debt, bitcoin sales, and increased interest expense.