Bitcoin’s roughly 23% rise over a week in August sparked even sharper gains among several publicly traded mining companies, reaffirming how closely the sector’s equity valuations can still track the cryptocurrency despite an expensive push into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Canaan, American Bitcoin and Cango rose between 41% and 67% during the period, according to BlocksBridge Consulting’s Miner Weekly update. Their gains exceeded those of several AI-linked infrastructure companies monitored by the consultancy, including CoreWeave, up about 21%, Nebius, up 17%, and IREN, up 15%.
The divergence offers a clear snapshot of the market’s current hierarchy: companies that retain substantial exposure to bitcoin mining can outperform infrastructure businesses during a rapid bitcoin rally, even as miners spend billions building data-center operations intended to diversify their revenue.
Bitcoin rally lifted mining shares
BlocksBridge linked bitcoin’s move to three developments that emerged after Aug. 19: changes in U.S. Treasury liquidity operations, renewed attention on crypto legislation in Washington, and a wave of liquidations in crypto derivatives markets.
The U.S. Treasury Department said it would at least double the size of liquidity-support buybacks for longer-dated Treasury securities, according to the BlocksBridge update. Such operations can affect market liquidity and risk appetite, though their direct effect on bitcoin prices is difficult to isolate from other macroeconomic and trading factors.
Crypto policy also returned to the foreground after a White House meeting involving industry executives. Reuters reported that President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass a “fair version” of the CLARITY Act, a proposed market-structure bill that remains stalled. The legislation would seek to establish clearer regulatory boundaries for digital-asset markets, a subject that has remained central to U.S. industry lobbying.
The price move then accelerated through derivatives markets. BlocksBridge reported that more than $1.6 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours after bitcoin broke higher, creating a short squeeze as traders betting on lower prices were forced to close positions by buying back exposure.
That mechanism can produce rapid moves without necessarily indicating that long-term spot demand has strengthened by the same amount. Forced liquidations add buying pressure in futures markets, and the effect can fade once leveraged positions have been cleared.
The supplied market data also pointed to $1.92 billion of inflows into spot bitcoin funds over five days, the strongest weekly intake in 10 months. These inflows indicate fresh capital entering regulated spot-fund products, although they do not establish whether every part of bitcoin’s rally was driven by fund demand rather than derivatives activity.
AI spending remains far ahead of miner revenue
The sharp share-price gains arrived while public miners’ AI and high-performance computing projects remain deeply capital-intensive. BlocksBridge estimated that miners have invested roughly $15 in AI data-center infrastructure for every $1 of AI-related revenue generated so far in 2026.
Across nine public mining companies examined by the consultancy, AI and HPC revenue totaled $341.2 million in 2026, against $5.11 billion in capital expenditures tied to the technology. The gap reflects the economics of converting mining sites into computing facilities: companies must secure power capacity, acquire advanced servers, install cooling systems and meet network requirements before they can generate recurring hosting or cloud-computing revenue.
Several miners are pursuing these projects because AI computing contracts can potentially create revenue that is less directly tied to bitcoin’s block rewards and transaction-fee cycle. Yet the financial payoff depends on whether operators can secure customers, maintain high utilization rates and keep construction costs under control.
The spending burden extends beyond mining companies. During the latest reporting period cited in the supplied material, 15 broader technology firms spent $30.7 billion on physical infrastructure, a 42.6% increase from the previous full year. Revenue from the relevant technology services rose 52% in the second quarter to $205.8 million, illustrating strong demand but also the scale of investment required to support it.
For miners, the challenge is particularly acute because they are trying to finance data-center expansion while preserving their existing bitcoin-mining operations. Power access, cooling design and specialized chips are expensive, while the ultimate returns from AI hosting can take years to become visible in reported earnings.
Diversification has not broken bitcoin’s influence
Some miners with greater AI and HPC exposure were flat or declined during the bitcoin-led equity rally, according to BlocksBridge. That pattern suggests that markets continue to separate companies based on their immediate bitcoin sensitivity, rather than assigning a uniform premium to every firm building AI infrastructure.
Canaan, American Bitcoin and Cango benefited more directly from the return of momentum in bitcoin-linked equities. By contrast, the more modest moves in CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN showed that AI infrastructure stocks were not lifted by the same degree of speculative pressure during the period.
The contrast places public miners in a difficult middle ground. Their AI projects could eventually reduce their dependence on bitcoin’s market cycles, but current revenue remains small relative to the capital committed. Until those projects produce larger and more predictable cash flows, sudden bitcoin moves and derivatives-driven rallies are likely to remain a major influence on how traders value the sector.
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