The Indicator from Planet Money

Episode Title: Bitcoin Miners Are Betting on AI Over Crypto
Date: December 10, 2025
Hosts: Darren Woods & Stephen Besarha

Episode Overview

This episode explores a major transition underway in the world of bitcoin mining: as cryptocurrency prices fall and the artificial intelligence (AI) boom gathers steam, many large bitcoin mining companies are shifting their focus from mining crypto to operating data centers for AI. Through interviews with industry leaders, the hosts unpack the drivers behind this shift, the strategic implications for these "miners," and how the change fits into broader trends in energy use and technology.

Key Discussion Points

1. The Evolution of Bitcoin Mining

• Technological and Scale Shift:
  • Once achievable by individuals ("in a hotel room with a bunch of servers all, like, duct taped together"), bitcoin mining has evolved into an industry dominated by companies operating massive data centers.
  • [02:40] Ben Gagnon, CEO of Bitfarms: "We had four co-founders, two of them from Argentina who were actually mining bitcoin and ether in a small Argentinian hotel."
• Market Scale:
  • Crypto mining was a multi-billion dollar market but faces contraction as profit margins tighten and competitive pressures mount.
  • [03:10] Stephen Besarha: "Different estimates put the market size for crypto crypto mining last year at around one and a half to over $2 billion."

2. Pivot to AI Data Centers

• AI as a 'Great Disruptor':
  • Mining companies are moving to AI because AI workloads also demand powerful computers and huge amounts of energy, similar to crypto mining.
  • [01:00] Darren Woods: "Those companies are shifting away from bitcoin mining to a new technology... They're switching to AI."
• Bitfarms' Example:
  • Bitfarms is aggressively scaling down its bitcoin mining business, selling off sites, and preparing to wind down mining operations over the next year or two.
  • [03:38] Stephen Besarha: "What is the future of bitcoin mining at bitfarm?"
  • [03:51] Ben Gagnon: "We've sold off a number of sites. Likely, over the next year or two, the bitcoin mining business is going to completely wind up."
• Rebranding As Energy & Infrastructure Providers:
  • Mining companies are reframing themselves as energy and infrastructure firms, leveraging their access to cheap or plentiful energy—the true bottleneck for both industries.
  • [04:31] Ben Gagnon: "The energy is the asset. The energy is where all the value is."

3. The Energy Equation

• Energy as the Core Asset:
  • Both AI and bitcoin consume massive energy, straining power supplies and driving up prices. While mining companies do not generate energy, they secure valuable long-term supply agreements.
  • [04:49] Ben Gagnon: "Yeah. Call us an energy and infrastructure company. What we solve is the bottleneck on energy."
• Environmental and Economic Concerns:
  • The surge in demand from both AI and crypto is leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions and is pushing power companies to expand capacity.
  • [05:06] Darren Woods: "Now, we should mention that both bitcoin and AI use massive amounts of energy. That's driving up electricity prices... And we know that is not good for the climate."

4. Why AI is More Attractive

• Steady Revenue vs. Volatility:
  • Unlike bitcoin, which requires enduring extreme price swings, AI workloads promise more consistent revenue, higher margins, and sustainable growth—key for long-term business planning.
  • [05:52] Ben Gagnon: "Bitcoin mining is so volatile that it's really hard to forecast how you want to grow the company over the next even two years."
  • [06:13] Ben Gagnon: "You can move over to a business that is, you know, not volatile... has higher revenues, higher margins, higher cash flows."
  • [06:24] Stephen Besarha (joking): "Imagine a lot better for your blood pressure."

5. Identity and Belief in Bitcoin

• Bitfarms’ Leadership Still Believes:
  • Despite the shift, Ben Gagnon and his team remain committed "bitcoiners"—personally investing in the currency—but feel the company's future lies elsewhere.
  • [06:45] Ben Gagnon: "We're all bitcoiners here at this company. We all believe in bitcoin. We all own bitcoin. So that's not a decision that anyone made lightly."
• Reconciling Belief and Business:
  • Gagnon argues there is no conflict between personal belief in bitcoin and the company's strategic pivot.
  • [07:08] Ben Gagnon: "You can believe in bitcoin and it can also not be the right thing for you or the company to do... Doesn't mean I'm selling my bitcoin... but it just means that there's a better opportunity for the company itself."

6. Not Everyone is Abandoning Crypto Immediately

• Iron (Iren): Dual Strategy
  • Iron (referred to as "Iron" or "Iren"), an Australian company, was never solely a bitcoin miner—its baseline strategy has been to leverage advanced data centers for whatever tasks are most profitable at any given time.
  • [07:38] Kent Draper, Chief Commercial Officer: "Bitcoin mining for us today is extremely cash flow generative."
• Flexible Business Model:
  • Iron is slowly transitioning to AI but is keeping options open to maximize returns as new technologies emerge.
  • [08:19] Kent Draper: "Historically, that was bitcoin mining."
  • [08:51] Kent Draper: "If you rewind, even five years ago, I mean, AI as it is today was a twinkle in the eye of a bunch of R and D people... So if you fast forward 10 years from now, who knows what the use cases could be?"
  • [09:22] Kent Draper: "For us it's not a pivot, it's just an ongoing evolution of the platform."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [01:15] Stephen Besarha (joking about AI's reach): "AI comes for us all."
• [03:56] Ben Gagnon, on the company name: "You know, bits are not specific to bitcoin. Right. It's bits. AI uses bits."
• [06:24] Stephen Besarha: "Imagine a lot better for your blood pressure."
  [06:27] Ben Gagnon: "Certainly doesn't hurt."
• [09:18] Stephen Besarha: "All right, so don't call it a pivot, call it a diversifying."
• [09:47] Darren Woods, on tech optimism: "If I were looking for optimism, the dot com bubble might be the last place I'd look."

Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------| | 00:14 | Hosts introduce the bitcoin mining mystery | | 02:40 | Interview with Ben Gagnon of Bitfarms | | 03:38 | Bitfarms' shift away from bitcoin discussed | | 04:31 | Importance of energy assets explained | | 05:06 | Climate and energy supply concerns | | 05:52 | Volatility of bitcoin mining | | 07:38 | Interview with Kent Draper of Iron | | 08:51 | Draper on future-proofing by flexibility | | 09:22 | "Not a pivot, an evolution" |

Takeaways

• Major bitcoin mining companies are rapidly exiting crypto in favor of AI data center operations due to better margins, steadier growth, and the immense demand for AI computing.
• The real strategic asset is energy—companies securing long-term energy supplies can flexibly serve whichever compute-intensive business is most profitable.
• Environmental and grid stress from these shifts is a growing, unsolved problem.
• While some leaders remain philosophically committed to bitcoin, pragmatic business decisions are steering companies elsewhere.
• Others, like Iron, are hedging bets, waiting to see what future high-energy, high-compute use cases might arise.

Episode Tone:
Conversational, lightly humorous, and insightful, with a focus on making complex business shifts accessible to a general audience.