Bitcoin Is Down. Miners Are Up. That’s the Signal.
Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI).
Editor’s Note: One of the things I appreciate most about Jonathan Rose is that he doesn’t stop at the headline. He asks the next question.
In this case, it wasn’t “what is Bitcoin doing?” but “why are the miners behaving differently?” That’s the kind of thinking he and Marc Chaikin unpack in their Convergence presentation. If you haven’t watched it yet, I’d encourage you to set aside a little time. I think you’ll see the market a bit differently afterward.
In today’s guest essay, Jonathan explains why many of these miners are quietly becoming AI infrastructure plays — and why that shift is still in its early stages, with plenty of runway left. Plus, he identifies three companies that stand to benefit.
Read on for all the details.
The other morning on my daily livestream, I put up a chart that made everyone watching think I’d made a mistake.
On one side was Bitcoin. Down nearly 30% this year and below $60,000 for the first time since 2024.
On the other side were Bitcoin miners. Their stocks were up around 56% so far in 2026.
At first glance, it doesn’t make any sense.
For years, those two charts might as well have been one. Bitcoin went up… miners went up. Bitcoin went down… miners went down. That’s just how the market worked.
Except, not anymore.
After nearly three decades trading on the floors in Chicago, I’ve learned that when two things that usually move together suddenly stop moving together, it’s usually because the market has figured something out before everyone else has.
Most investors see a contradiction. Professional traders see a clue.
I want to show you more about that today.
I’m going to explain why Bitcoin miners have quietly become one of the most interesting AI infrastructure stories in the market…
Introduce you to a few companies I think are leading that transition…
And show you why this is exactly the kind of market shift Marc Chaikin and I built our Convergence system to identify before it becomes obvious to everyone else.
Same Substation, Different Tenant: Why Bitcoin Miners Are Becoming AI Infrastructure Stocks
Sometimes, companies don’t change, but the market changes the business they’re in. Bitcoin miners are a perfect example.
For years, investors valued them almost entirely on one thing: Bitcoin’s price. That made sense.
Crypto mining companies filled giant warehouses with specialized computers, consumed enormous amounts of electricity, and turned all that power into digital coins. If Bitcoin went up, their economics improved. If Bitcoin fell, investors headed for the exits.
Simple.
Then something unexpected happened: AI kept running into walls. First power, then transformers, and eventually substations, cooling systems, memory, and electrical equipment.
While everyone wants to build AI data centers, utilities can’t magically create new substations, transmission lines, transformers, cooling systems, and grid connections overnight. Those things take years to permit and build.
That’s when the AI hyperscalers started asking a different question — who already owns massive, energized industrial sites connected directly to the electrical grid?
The answer is Bitcoin miners.
Nothing about their land, electrical infrastructure, or transmission connections changed. The only change was where the demand was coming from.
The companies remain essentially the same, but I don’t think of this business as Bitcoin mining anymore. They’re now AI infrastructure companies that have discovered their most valuable asset isn’t Bitcoin.
It’s electricity.
That’s why those charts suddenly diverged. The market went looking for power, found it in Bitcoin miners, and started repricing them.
And once I saw that, the entire sector started making sense.
Follow the Power: The AI Trade Hidden Inside Bitcoin Mining Stocks
This isn’t the first time Wall Street has misunderstood what it was looking at.
During every major technology boom, investors spend the early years obsessing over the obvious winners. Then they slowly realize the real money often sits one layer underneath.
The internet needed fiber, cloud computing needed data centers, and the shale revolution needed pipelines and pressure-pumping equipment.
AI needs electricity – and lots of it.
That’s why I think this transition is still in its early innings.
Wall Street research firm Bernstein estimates publicly traded Bitcoin miners control more than 27 gigawatts of planned power capacity. Many are signing 15- to 25-year agreements with AI customers instead of dedicating those facilities to Bitcoin mining.
That’s an entirely different business model, one with long-term contracts, predictable cash flows, and investment-grade counterparties.
Instead of hoping Bitcoin rallies next month, they’re signing long-term infrastructure contracts.
That’s a very different investment thesis.
Three Bitcoin Miners Pivoting Into AI Data Centers
If you’ve been watching at Masters in Trading Live, you’ve probably heard me mention these crypto miners-turned-AI infrastructure names before.
IREN Ltd. (IREN) remains my favorite. The company has partnered directly with Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), continues expanding its power footprint, and — something I really like — has deliberately avoided turning itself into another leveraged Bitcoin proxy. It’s focused on building an AI infrastructure business.
Cipher Digital Inc. (CIFR) has also been making this transition aggressively. We’ve traded it successfully before, and I continue to like what management is doing as it shifts toward long-term AI hosting contracts.
And then there’s TeraWulf Inc. (WULF). I’ve joked on the livestream about it being “Google’s landlord.” That’s obviously an oversimplification, but it captures what’s happening. Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) has invested heavily in the company as TeraWulf transforms some of its Bitcoin-mining sites into AI data center infrastructure. Instead of earning money primarily from mining coins, it’s increasingly getting paid to provide the power, land, and facilities AI companies (including Google) desperately need.
The market used to value these companies based on how many coins they mined. Today it’s beginning to value them based on who leases their AI infrastructure.
Now, I want to be clear.
I’m not telling you to run out and buy every Bitcoin miner you can find. Some will execute this transition well, but plenty won’t.
The opportunity is in knowing which companies big institutional investors – the “smart money” – are quietly accumulating before everyone else starts telling the same story.
How to Spot the Bitcoin Miners Institutions Are Buying
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that Wall Street almost never announces these transitions.
They don’t ring a bell.
The smart money moves first. A few months later, analysts upgrade the stocks. Then the rest of us see the headlines.
That’s frustrating if you’re trying to stay ahead of the market.
It’s also exactly why Marc Chaikin and I started working together.
I’ve always been comfortable spotting unusual market behavior—moments when the tape starts telling a different story than the headlines. That’s what I did on the trading floor for nearly three decades.
Bitcoin down, miners up. That’s exactly the kind of divergence that gets my attention.
But direction has always been harder.
Marc built his career studying institutional money flow… direction.
When we combined those two approaches, we found something neither of us had on our own. We call it the Convergence Trigger.
Instead of asking, “Is this an interesting story?” we ask, “Are institutions already positioning for it?”
Because by the time everyone agrees Bitcoin miners have become AI infrastructure companies, the biggest gains may already be behind us.
Marc and I recently sat down to explain exactly how we’re using this approach — not just with Bitcoin miners, but across AI infrastructure, SpaceX-related opportunities, and several other market themes we’re watching right now.
If you missed that free presentation, we’ve made it available again for a limited time.
I think you’ll come away with something even more valuable than three stock ideas. You’ll come away with a different way of looking at the market.
You’ll understand that the biggest winners often aren’t hiding at all. They’re simply being misunderstood.