Bitfarms’ stock tumbled after the company revealed plans to phase out its Bitcoin mining operations over the next two years and pivot toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) data centers.
On Thursday, Bitfarms announced that its 18-megawatt Bitcoin mining facility in Washington state will be the first to be fully converted for AI and HPC workloads, with the transition expected to be completed by December 2026.
“Even though the Washington site represents less than 1% of our total developable portfolio, we believe converting it to GPU-as-a-Service could generate more net operating income than we have ever seen from Bitcoin mining,” said Bitfarms CEO Ben Gagnon. He added that the move will help the company gradually wind down its Bitcoin mining operations in 2026 and 2027.
Other cryptocurrency miners have also started shifting some operations toward AI as the sector sees rapid growth. In early November, Bitcoin miner IREN signed a multi-year $9.7 billion deal with Microsoft, granting the tech giant access to its AI computing capacity.
Calling AI the “best opportunity” for most U.S. Bitcoin miners, Gagnon told investors during an earnings call that miners are likely to relocate to jurisdictions with lower costs as the difficulty and expenses of cryptocurrency mining continue to rise.
“One significant trend is that public miners, who once made up nearly a third of the network, are increasingly moving toward the higher-margin opportunities in HPC and AI,” he added.
Bitfarms CEO Ben Gagnon said that Bitcoin mining is seeing significant growth in regions like the Middle East, Africa, and Russia. However, he added that “the best opportunity for most miners in the United States really is this transition to HPC and AI.”
“The economics are driving this shift,” Gagnon explained. “The U.S. is the most attractive market for HPC and AI investment, whereas Bitcoin mining is largely location-agnostic. Mining can move to cheaper, higher-risk, or more remote locations—something HPC and AI cannot do.”
He noted that relocating Bitfarms’ Bitcoin mining operations would be limited and “not a great use of management’s resources or time.” “The best strategy is to convert potential free cash flow from mining operations into cash now and reinvest it into HPC and AI,” he said.
Q3 Results:
The announcement comes as Bitfarms reported a Q3 net loss of $46 million, compared with a $24 million loss a year earlier, equating to a loss of 8 cents per share—worse than analyst expectations of a 2-cent loss per share.
Revenue rose 156% year-over-year to $69 million but fell short of analyst estimates by more than 16%. During the quarter, Bitfarms mined 520 BTC at an average direct cost of $48,200 each and held 1,827 BTC as of Wednesday.
Following the results, Bitfarms (BITF) shares dropped nearly 18% to close at $2.60 on Thursday, with after-hours trading extending losses by an additional 3.5% to $2.51.
