Bitcoin Mining Stocks Surge as Another Firm Embraces AI Boom

Bitcoin mining company stocks rocketed up Monday as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rallied amid increased optimism that the U.S. and China would find at least a partial resolution to its trade war. 

Canaan closed about 28% higher by mid-afternoon. CleanSpark, which on Monday announced that it would become the latest publicly traded miner to pivot resources to artificial intelligence-focused projects, was up roughly 4.5%. 

CleanSpark also said that it was hiring Jeffrey Thomas as senior vice president of AI data centers. Thomas previously worked as president of AI data centers at Humain, where he led Saudi Arabia's multi-billion AI data center program, according to a statement. 

Riot Platforms and Cipher Mining traded 10% and nearly 6% higher, respectively.  

Their gains come after Bitcoin's price rose following a down week in which risk-on assets were buffeted by a re-escalation of U.S.-China trade tensions.  On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would soon meet with China President Xi Jinping. 

Last week, investors liquidated more than $19 billion in largely leveraged crypto futures positions.

Bitcoin was recently trading for $110,368, up 1.6% over the past 24 hours, although the coin was off 3.6% over the past week, according to crypto markets data provider CoinGecko. The largest digital asset by market value last week dropped as low as $104,778.

Last month, CleanSpark secured a new $100 million credit line from Coinbase Prime, extending its financing arrangements with the exchange.

The credit is backed by the miner's Bitcoin holdings and is intended to strengthen liquidity while the firm pursues "accretive growth using non-dilutive financing," Gary A. Vecchiarelli, chief financial officer and president at CleanSpark, wrote in a statement.

The funds will support energy expansion, mining growth, and new high-performance computing projects, with the move building on earlier steps, the company said.

Miners, who earn Bitcoin for verifying transactions on the blockchain,  have had to reckon with rising costs and reduced rewards. Last year's halving cut the amount of BTC miners could earn from 6.25 to 3.125. Canaan's share price has fallen more than 10% year-to-date, but CleanSpark and Riot are both up more than 110%. 

In this more challenging landscape, a number of miners have begun focusing more on high performance computing that is integral to AI. 

Investors have viewed this trend positively. Google last month announced it was backstopping a deal between AI compute company Fluidstack and Bitcoin miner Cipher, giving Google the right to buy a 5.4% stake in Cipher.

Experts previously told Decrypt that while the world of high-performance computing is attractive, it's by no means easy.