Bitcoin miners are looking to reduce their dependence on cryptocurrency by moving into new business areas, such as offering high-performance computing (HPC) services to the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) market, according to a research report from JPMorgan (JPM) Wednesday. The cost of the new investments has been funded in part by miners selling coins in recent quarters.
Some bitcoin mining firms have rebranded to reflect the diversification, with Hive Blockchain Technologies (HIVE) becoming Hive Digital Technologies, and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) changing its name to Riot Platforms. Former ether (ETH) miners have also shown a tendency to offer HPC services, the bank said, noting that since the Ethereum blockchain merge, there has been a high supply of graphics processing units (GPUs) for sale in the secondary market.
With the rapid growth of AI, the increased demand for high-performance computing is now opening a new and perhaps more profitable avenue for utilizing GPUs previously used for ether mining, the analysts wrote. Bitcoin miners are also trying to diversify in terms of geography, with Russia emerging as one of the global leaders second to the U.S., in terms of bitcoin mining power consumption.