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15 May 2026, 06:13

What the AI Pivot Means for Bitcoin Miners — and Bitcoin

North American listed miners are responding to challenging post-halving economics by pivoting toward AI infrastructure — but not uniformly, and not without risk. The shift is splitting the sector into different kinds of companies. Bitcoin, meanwhile, looks likely to absorb the change largely as designed. One of the biggest stories of 2026 so far has been the shift by North American listed bitcoin miners into Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure. MARA and CleanSpark became the latest examples on May 11, 2026, both posting heavy losses for the quarter ended March 31, while elaborating on plans to expand their focus on AI and high-performance computing (HPC). Often framed as a story about companies abandoning Bitcoin en masse , the reality is more nuanced. It does, however, raise a key question: is scarce power better used mining Bitcoin, or leased to an AI industry willing to pay for long-term capacity? The answer is different for every company. Some miners are moving decisively away from Bitcoin. Others remain mining-heavy, but are building optionality around power, land and data-centre infrastructure. One thing the Q1 reporting cycle has made clear, however, is that the “bitcoin miner” label now covers companies with very different underlying businesses. The Economics Behind the Shift The most obvious reason for the pivot among many miners is simple economics. After the April 2024 halving , miners continued to compete for 3.125 BTC per block as part of a network that grew throughout much of 2025. According to CoinShares’ Q1 2026 Mining Report , by October 2025, global hashrate had reached an all-time high of roughly 1,160 EH/s. Despite pulling back into late 2025 and early 2026, competition remained fierce enough to push hashprice, the daily revenue generated per petahash, to roughly $29/PH/s in Q1 2026. The weighted average cost to produce one Bitcoin among listed miners meanwhile sat at roughly $80,000 in Q4 2025, with 15 to 20 percent of the global fleet estimated to be operating at a loss. All of this against the backdrop of rapid growth in the AI sector. Revenue from mining is notoriously volatile, tied directly to BTC price, network difficulty and energy costs. The AI and HPC industries, in contrast, offer what — at least for now — appears to be higher and more predictable long-term revenue that lenders are more inclined to finance. A significant portion of the mining sector is built around assets that AI infrastructure providers need and cannot easily replicate themselves. The overlap among the two industries include large power purchase agreements, grid-connected land, and facilities that can both run energy-hungry hardware and, in some cases, generate their own power. For miners caught between rising production costs and falling hashprice, the temptation to shift operations away from thinner, more uncertain mining returns is easy to understand. Not All Miners Are Making the Same Bet For some miners, the move to make bitcoin mining secondary — and potentially exit it entirely — is already underway. Core Scientific, for example, reported that its bitcoin mining segment ran at a negative gross margin in Q1 2026. Its colocation business, by contrast, remained highly profitable. While the company has not exited mining entirely, it has signalled it is no longer a priority, describing self-mining as a way to help offset power costs while it scales towards almost 600 MW of AI capacity. Hut 8, meanwhile, has moved to separate its bitcoin mining operations through American Bitcoin Corp, repositioning Hut 8 itself as an energy infrastructure platform. At the more decisive end of the spectrum, Keel Infrastructure, formerly Bitfarms, said in February 2026 that it is no longer a Bitcoin company, while Cipher’s CEO told investors on an earnings call in May that bitcoin mining will cease to be part of the company’s story by 2030. MARA Holdings sits in a more ambiguous middle ground. Its planned acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power gives it control of a 505 MW gas-fired power plant and more than 1,600 acres of industrial land in Ohio, creating a clearer path into AI, HPC and broader digital infrastructure. Operationally, however, it remains one of the largest bitcoin miners in the market, with 72.2 EH/s of energised hash rate in Q1, up 33 percent year-on-year. Riot is somewhat harder to read. It generated $111.9 million of bitcoin mining revenue in Q1, far above its reported $33.2 million in data-centre revenue. Most of that figure, however, was reimbursement for construction work rather than recurring lease income. Its core business remains bitcoin mining, even if its infrastructure strategy is clearly changing. Widely seen until recently as one of the few remaining pure-play listed bitcoin miners in North America, CleanSpark reported fiscal Q2 results in May 2026, showing it had increased its average monthly hashrate by 18 percent year-on-year, despite an almost 25 percent fall in revenue. At the same time, it has doubled its megawatts under contract over the past year, with much of that capacity now earmarked for AI infrastructure. Trading One Risk for Another The AI contract backlogs being announced across the sector are large and long-dated. Earning them requires companies to spend heavily upfront, complete construction on schedule, secure power delivery and keep customers committed to leases that can run for well over a decade. A contract backlog is a claim on future execution, not a guarantee. These commitments also reduce future flexibility. A miner that commits scarce power capacity to long-term AI leases cannot easily switch it back to Bitcoin if hashprice recovers or bitcoin rallies. For companies moving hardest into AI, the pivot may solve today’s margin problem while giving up tomorrow’s mining optionality, just as weaker competitors exit and the economics for remaining miners improve. The financing required to fund that buildout is also substantial. Several miners have raised billions in project debt against future lease revenue, helped by credit support from hyperscalers including Google and Microsoft . That makes institutional financing easier, but it does not absorb the operational challenge of building hyperscale data-centre infrastructure, where specialised equipment, power delivery, construction timelines and customer performance all become sources of risk. The trade comes down to hashprice volatility versus infrastructure execution risk. For an operator currently mining at a cash loss, that may be rational. But the shift exchanges one set of risks for another, with no guarantee the new set is smaller. Bitcoin Is Working as Designed The obvious question is whether public miners shifting capacity away from Bitcoin weakens the network in any meaningful way. A sharp, sustained hashrate decline would reduce Bitcoin’s security margin by making the network cheaper to attack. The go-to comparison is China’s 2021 mining ban , when a much larger share of global hashrate came offline in a short period. In the end, blocks slowed, Bitcoin’s difficulty adjusted and mining activity migrated elsewhere. The episode was disruptive for miners, but not existential for the network. The more important question is who replaces uneconomic hashpower. CoinShares argues resilience has been supported by state-backed miners, private operators with cheap or stranded power and ASIC manufacturers running unsold inventory through their own facilities. Hashrate may also be becoming more geographically dispersed, with Paraguay, Ethiopia and Oman having recently entered the global top 10 . That could reduce one form of concentration, though opaque or state-linked replacement hashpower brings its own risks. Listed miners are businesses like any other, and businesses reallocate capital when the opportunity cost changes. Throughout Bitcoin’s history, miners have entered, exited and relocated. Difficulty has adjusted, and hashpower has followed the cheapest and most durable sources of energy. If some North American public miners decide their power is worth more serving AI, that will clearly change who earns future block rewards. It may also change how public miner equities trade. What the shift shows is not the failure of bitcoin mining. It is the network is responding exactly as designed. The post What the AI Pivot Means for Bitcoin Miners — and Bitcoin appeared first on Bitfinex blog .

15 May 2026, 06:10

Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Long/Short Ratios Signal Balanced Market Sentiment Across Top Exchanges

BitcoinWorld Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Long/Short Ratios Signal Balanced Market Sentiment Across Top Exchanges Data from the world’s three largest cryptocurrency futures exchanges by open interest reveals a nearly balanced market sentiment for Bitcoin perpetual contracts over the past 24 hours. The overall long/short ratio across Binance, OKX, and Bybit stands at 50.29% long positions versus 49.71% short positions, indicating that traders are evenly split on Bitcoin’s near-term price direction. Exchange-Level Breakdown A closer look at individual platforms shows slight variations in positioning. Binance, the largest exchange by trading volume, reports a 51.63% long ratio against 48.37% short. OKX follows a similar pattern with 51.34% longs and 48.66% shorts. Bybit, however, shows a marginally bearish tilt, with 49.96% long positions and 50.04% short positions. These narrow differences suggest that while overall sentiment is balanced, there is a minor bullish lean on Binance and OKX. What This Means for Traders The near-even long/short ratio often reflects a market in equilibrium, where neither bulls nor bears have established clear dominance. Such conditions can precede periods of increased volatility, as a breakout in either direction may trigger cascading liquidations on the side with higher leverage. For traders monitoring Bitcoin’s price action, these ratios serve as a useful sentiment gauge, particularly when combined with other indicators like open interest changes and funding rates. Context and Market Implications Bitcoin perpetual futures are a popular instrument for leveraged trading, allowing positions to be held indefinitely without expiry. The long/short ratio represents the proportion of open positions betting on price increases versus decreases. A ratio consistently above 50% suggests bullish sentiment, while below 50% indicates bearishness. The current data points to a market that is waiting for a catalyst, whether macroeconomic news, regulatory developments, or on-chain activity, to determine the next significant move. Conclusion The 24-hour long/short ratios across Binance, OKX, and Bybit show a market in a state of near-perfect balance. While Binance and OKX exhibit a slight bullish bias, Bybit’s marginal bearish tilt keeps the overall picture neutral. Traders should watch for shifts in these ratios alongside other market data to anticipate potential directional moves. FAQs Q1: What is a Bitcoin perpetual futures contract? A Bitcoin perpetual futures contract is a derivative that allows traders to speculate on Bitcoin’s price without an expiration date. It uses a funding rate mechanism to keep the contract price close to the spot price. Q2: How is the long/short ratio calculated? The long/short ratio is calculated by dividing the number of open long positions by the total number of open positions (longs + shorts) on a given exchange. It is usually expressed as a percentage. Q3: Why does the long/short ratio matter for traders? The ratio provides insight into market sentiment. Extreme readings can signal overcrowded trades and potential reversals, while balanced readings like the current ones may indicate indecision and a possible volatility expansion. This post Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Long/Short Ratios Signal Balanced Market Sentiment Across Top Exchanges first appeared on BitcoinWorld .

15 May 2026, 06:02

XRP About to Move As Amazon Did. Here’s the Bullish Analysis

Blockchain and AI investor Tom has shared a chart on X comparing XRP’s current market structure to Amazon’s historical price action before a major breakout. The post suggested that XRP could be approaching a similar move after spending years below a long-term resistance level. In the image attached, Tom compared XRP’s chart with Amazon’s historical chart, highlighting similarities in their formations. The XRP side of the chart showed what he labeled as an “8 YR RESISTANCE,” while Amazon’s chart displayed a “10.5YR RESISTANCE.” Both charts included higher lows forming beneath major resistance before an eventual breakout attempt. Tom captioned the post: “XRP about to move as @amazon did.” The chart showed XRP consolidating around a long-term resistance zone after recovering from previous lows. On the Amazon chart, a similar structure eventually led to a strong upward move after years of price compression beneath resistance. The comparison suggested that XRP could be nearing a breakout phase if the pattern continues in the same direction. $XRP about to move like @amazon did https://t.co/bKI8BO1b0u pic.twitter.com/Q9KBBsJEkf — Tom (@lovesmoney123) May 12, 2026 Old XRP and DTCC Post Returns to Focus Alongside the recent chart comparison, Tom also highlighted an older X post discussing the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and XRP’s potential role in future financial infrastructure. The highlighted post stated “@The_DTCC | Quadrillions incoming @Ripple is connected A new digital infrastructure layer forming — where $XRP is positioned as the settlement bridge behind it. People are starting to catch on.” The renewed attention around the older post came as conversations around tokenization and blockchain-based settlement systems continue to grow within the digital asset industry. Former CFTC Commissioner Discusses DTCC’s Shift Tom’s highlighted post also included a video featuring J. Christopher Giancarlo, former Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the United States, discussing DTCC’s transition toward digital financial infrastructure. In the video, Giancarlo explained that DTCC operates core settlement and clearing systems used by global financial markets, including equities, debt securities, and U.S. Treasuries. He described the company as one of the most important infrastructure providers in the financial system due to its role in processing and recording ownership and movement of financial assets. According to Giancarlo, DTCC’s move from traditional recordkeeping systems to digital network-based infrastructure represents a major shift for the financial industry. He said the transition marks the movement from an analog financial system to a digitally connected financial environment. Giancarlo also stated that tokenization could eventually transform the structure of the entire financial system over the next decade. He noted that DTCC’s transition reflects support from major global financial institutions, as the organization is owned and directed by leading banks and financial firms. XRP Community Watches Long-Term Resistance Level Tom’s comparison between XRP and Amazon comes as XRP continues trading near a long-standing resistance area that analysts have monitored for years. Several market participants on X have recently pointed to XRP’s higher-low structure as a sign that the asset may be building strength beneath a key breakout level. While the comparison does not guarantee a similar outcome, the post added to ongoing speculation surrounding XRP’s long-term price potential and its possible involvement in future tokenized financial systems. Disclaimer : This content is meant to inform and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author’s personal opinions and do not represent Times Tabloid’s opinion. Readers are advised to conduct thorough research before making any investment decisions. Any action taken by the reader is strictly at their own risk. Times Tabloid is not responsible for any financial losses. Follow us on X , Facebook , Telegram , and Google News The post XRP About to Move As Amazon Did. Here’s the Bullish Analysis appeared first on Times Tabloid .

15 May 2026, 06:00

Ripple Research Lead Reveals What’s Next For The XRP Ledger

RippleX Head of Research Aanchal Malhotra said the next phase of XRP Ledger development is focused on privacy, zero-knowledge proofs and post-quantum readiness, framing the work as an effort to future-proof the network without compromising its core settlement design. Speaking on Episode 25 of Krippenreiter TV with XRP Ledger Foundation member Hussein “Vet” Zangana and Krippenreiter, Malhotra described RippleX’s research agenda as a balance between long-term cryptographic development and near-term product requirements. Her team, she said, works across privacy, consensus, protocol design, interoperability and DeFi, but the mandate is not to chase each new cycle. “Lasting impact is not by chasing hype,” Malhotra said. “It’s actually building and focusing on security, the fundamentals, and that’s what we work on a lot.” Ripple Focuses On Privacy, ZK Proofs And Post-Quantum Security That work, according to Malhotra, is now centered on three areas: stronger cryptographic foundations, a rigorous path from research to production and demand from institutions asking for privacy and compliance features. She said RippleX is thinking about “ensuring that the right cryptographic primitives are in place,” including privacy foundations and preparations for the post-quantum era . Malhotra repeatedly returned to the idea that research only matters if it can safely ship on a live network that moves value. She said proposed changes have to survive threat modeling, formalization where appropriate, internal review and adversarial testing before reaching production. That process, she argued, is what separates interesting academic work from infrastructure that can be used by institutions. For XRPL, that means adding new capabilities without turning the base layer into a general-purpose execution environment. Malhotra defended the ledger’s original architectural choices, including its fixed-function design and limited native programmability, as still relevant more than a decade later. “The architectural decisions, at the time, for the specific purpose that XRP Ledger was supposed to serve, that is fast, low-cost, transparent payments, were correct,” she said. “There are some things that still stand strong today.” She pointed in particular to the absence of broad smart-contract functionality on layer one, arguing that clear boundaries have helped XRPL maintain performance and reduce the attack surface. The same reasoning applies to consensus, where Malhotra said XRPL’s design avoids the direct economic-incentive model seen in many other networks. The next challenge is how to extend XRPL without undermining those trade-offs. That is where zero-knowledge proofs and layer-two-style architectures enter the roadmap. Malhotra described ZK proofs as a way to prove that a statement is true without exposing unnecessary information. In one example, a user could prove they have enough funds to rent an apartment without showing bank statements, spending history or unrelated transactions. In another, a user could prove they are above a certain age without revealing full identity documents. But she cautioned that zero-knowledge is not a single tool. It is a family of cryptographic constructions, each with different trade-offs. For scalability, she said, the more important property is often succinctness: the ability to generate a small proof for complex off-chain computation that can be verified efficiently on-chain. That model could change the role of XRPL’s base layer. Instead of pushing complex computation onto the mainnet, developers could perform it elsewhere and settle proofs back to XRPL. Malhotra said that would allow the ledger to preserve its strengths while enabling new execution environments around it. For privacy, RippleX appears to be taking a more targeted approach. Malhotra distinguished privacy from opacity , saying public financial systems need confidentiality for sensitive data while preserving market integrity and auditability. “Privacy is not really the enemy, opacity is,” she said. “Financial systems require balances and transfer amounts to be protected in certain contexts. But the market should still be able to verify that the rules are being followed.” That logic informed RippleX’s work on confidential transfers for multi-purpose tokens. Malhotra said the design aims to hide balances and transfer amounts, while keeping total supply public and allowing independent auditors to verify activity where appropriate. For that use case, RippleX chose Bulletproofs, a type of zero-knowledge proof suited to range proofs and mature enough for a narrower production setting. Broader ZK functionality will require more foundational changes. Malhotra said XRPL’s existing cryptographic primitives were not designed with modern ZK systems in mind. Current signature schemes and hash functions are effective for fast payments, but not necessarily efficient inside ZK circuits. Retrofitting newer primitives, including pairing-friendly curves and ZK-friendly hashes, is therefore an engineering challenge. Performance is another constraint. XRPL’s short ledger close times and low fees leave little room for expensive on-chain verification, which is why RippleX is exploring native support for lower-level cryptographic operations while keeping more complex logic outside the base layer. Looking ahead, Malhotra said she wants XRPL to become a financial settlement layer that “just works,” with institutional payments, retail payments, tokenized assets and execution environments anchored to mainnet and settling in XRP. In that future, she said, cryptographic primitives such as zero-knowledge proofs and post-quantum security should become largely invisible to developers. At press time, XRP traded at $1.43379.

15 May 2026, 06:00

Will XRP Futures debuts on Moscow Exchange spark a reversal?

XRP and Ripple may be at a key inflection point right now.

15 May 2026, 06:00

Ethereum Dips To $2,250 As Trader Profit-Taking Hits 3-Week High

On-chain data shows investor realized profits on the Ethereum network have hit their highest level in three weeks alongside the dip in the ETH price. Ethereum Realized Profit/Loss Shot Up Recently According to data from on-chain analytics firm Santiment, the Ethereum Network Realized Profit/Loss has observed a spike recently. This indicator tells us, as its name suggests, the net amount of profit or loss that ETH investors as a whole are realizing through their transactions. Related Reading: Bitcoin Falls Below $80,000: Coinbase Sellers To Blame? The metric works by going through the transfer history of each token being sold on the blockchain to determine the price at which it was moved prior to this. If the previous transaction value was less than the latest selling price for any coin, then the token’s sale is considered to be leading to the realization of some net profit. Similarly, the opposite arrangement points to loss-taking. The exact degree of profit or loss involved in each case is equal to the difference between the two prices. The Network Realized Profit/Loss sums up this profit and loss for all transactions occurring on the network and determines their net value. Now, here is the chart shared by Santiment that shows the trend in the indicator for Ethereum over the past month: As displayed in the above graph, the Ethereum Network Realized Profit/Loss has mostly had a value lower than zero inside this window, a potential sign that investors selling on the blockchain has generally been of the loss-taking kind. There have been a few profit-taking spikes, however, with one such coming just recently. From the chart, it’s visible that investors took $74.58 million in profit alongside this surge. Interestingly, the distribution didn’t align with the local high from earlier in the week. Instead, it came after the cryptocurrency had already dipped. This means that some investors who were sitting on profits panicked by the price drawdown and just decided to exit with some gains. These holders could be the buyers from the February-March depressed market phase, when Ethereum was trading below $2,000. As the analytics firm explained: Wallets that accumulated during those months are still in profit even with this mid-May decline, and many have decided to sell while they feel they still have the opportunity to enjoy a profit. Related Reading: Dogecoin TD Sequential Flashes Sell Signal: Price Correction Ahead? Since the profit realization has occurred, Ethereum has witnessed a further dip, a potential sign that this distribution may have been a contributor. It now remains to be seen whether the Network Realized Profit/Loss will stay positive in the coming days or if loss-taking will follow next. ETH Price At the time of writing, Ethereum is floating around $2,250, down 2.6% in the last seven days. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com