Former Bitcoin miners are racing to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence, a pivot sending their stocks soaring.
HIVE Digital Technologies and Keel Infrastructure are accelerating their shift from Bitcoin mining to AI data centers, with HIVE raising $115 million in fresh capital and Keel selling foreign assets to fund the high-cost transition.
"We brought forward roughly two to three years of estimated free cash flow under current market conditions, in cash, and upfront," Keel CEO Ben Gagnon said in a statement. "That capital will be immediately allocated to our HPC/AI pipeline development, where we believe we will be able to generate much stronger returns."
HIVE raised $115 million through a zero-interest convertible note offering to expand its data center footprint and GPU capacity. Keel, formerly Bitfarms, netted approximately $13 million from the sale of its 70-megawatt facility in Paraguay. Shares of HIVE rose roughly 7% following the news, while Keel’s stock gained over 9%.
The moves highlight a broader trend among cryptocurrency miners, which are leveraging their expertise in energy procurement and infrastructure management to capture the high-margin AI and high-performance computing (HPC) market. This strategic pivot could lead to a re-evaluation of the sector as companies attract a new class of technology investors.
HIVE Digital secured the $115 million through a private placement of exchangeable senior notes, which will bear no interest. The company stated net proceeds will be approximately $109.5 million, a significant capital injection aimed directly at purchasing advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) and developing its data center facilities in Canada and Sweden.
This financing follows a partnership with computer maker Dell announced in November to support its AI expansion. The company is also upgrading its public listing to the Toronto Stock Exchange from the TSX Venture Exchange, a move designed to attract a wider investor base. The financing structure, which includes capped call transactions to limit potential shareholder dilution, suggests strong investor confidence in HIVE's strategic shift toward the booming AI infrastructure sector.
Keel Infrastructure’s sale of its Paraguayan operations for $13 million marks a complete exit from Latin America, cementing its focus on North America. The final price was less than half the initially expected $30 million, a revision that CEO Ben Gagnon said "reflects where Bitcoin mining economics stand today."
By exiting the more volatile mining market in the region, Keel is redirecting the capital to its 2.2-gigawatt pipeline of HPC and AI projects in Pennsylvania, Washington, and Québec. The company is betting that building out the infrastructure backbone for the AI economy in North America will create more long-term value for shareholders than its previous crypto mining operations. The move is part of a larger strategic transformation for the company, which recently rebranded from Bitfarms to Keel Infrastructure to reflect its new focus.
This pivot is not unique. Competitor Core Scientific recently announced a $3.3 billion junk-bond sale to further its own transition away from Bitcoin mining and toward AI. For investors, these companies are no longer pure-play crypto bets. They represent a new type of investment: a hybrid infrastructure play that is part energy, part data center, and part AI. While they trade at lower valuations than pure-play AI companies like Nvidia, their ability to secure power and build out data centers at scale could offer a differentiated way to invest in the artificial intelligence boom.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
