Bitcoin Miners Notch Gains as Meta Signs 20-Year AI Deal With Nuclear Plant

Bitcoin

trading at or about record highs hasn't proven to be much of a benefit to the roughed up the $BTC miners, but perhaps the growing energy needs of the AI sector could prove to be the industry's salvation.

Social media giant Meta (META) on Tuesday inked a 20-year deal with a nuclear power plant to buy 1.1 gigawatts of electrical output for AI purposes — yet another signal that tech giants are serious about investing into the necessary infrastructure to power their data centers.

Bitcoin miners, a number of which have begun diversifying their operations for AI purposes, could be benefiting from the news. MARA Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT), Hut 8 (HUT), Core Scientific (CORZ) and CleanSpark (CLSK) are among those sporting sizable gains, each ahead 7%-8% with less than an hour to go before the close of U.S. trade.

CoreWeave (CRWV), one of the hottest players in the AI sphere, is up 23% on the day to a new record and higher by more than 270% since it went public in March.

Cryptocurrencies themselves are modestly in the green, with bitcoin up 1.8% in the last 24 hours at $106,200. The broader CoinDesk 20 (an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization excluding exchange coins, memecoins and stablecoins), rose 2.8% in the same period of time, buoyed by solana

, uniswap , aave each gaining roughly 5-6%.

Crypto-related equities Coinbase (COIN) and Strategy (MSTR) are up 4.6% and 4.2%, respectively.

A check of traditional markets finds the Nasdaq higher by 0.8% and the S&P 500 by 0.6%.