A new framework from asset management firm VanEck draws clear lines between bitcoin miners who are truly transforming into AI infrastructure providers and those who are still selling a story. All of this comes with a hefty price tag: a financing gap of about $50 billion in the near term that stands between the sector’s pipeline ambitions and actual implementation.
In search NoteVanEck investment analyst Griffin McMaster, and Head of Digital Asset Research Matthew Siegel, have developed what they describe as the first systematic valuation approach to the increasingly blurred category of companies that straddles both. Bitcoin mining And hosting an artificial intelligence data center.
With financial disclosures varying widely across the sector and cash flows still nascent, van Eck says the cleanest metric available to investors at the moment is total activated capacity – essentially, how many megawatts a company has actually commissioned, not just announced.
The gap between these two things is already clear. Companies with actual leases — including Cipher Mining (CIFR), Hut 8 (HUT), and TeraWulf (WULF) — receive valuations of more than 10 times total active capacity.
Meanwhile, names like Digital Marathon (MARA) and CleanSpark (CLSK), which are still closely tied to Bitcoin mining with limited contracted AI capacity, trade at 2-6 times the same metric.
“Currently, we find the market paying for contracted and activated capacity, discounting everything still in the pipeline,” the analysts wrote.
Van Eck warns that signing contracts is only the beginning. Across the entire peer group, miners have delivered only approximately 25% of their leased capacity – a figure the company expects to decline further before improving, as large-scale construction projects get underway in 2027 and 2028.
This implementation gap is expected to become the dominant driver of valuation in the future, as companies that do not meet construction milestones risk what van Eck calls “structural downgrades.”
Analysts also point out that very few of these companies have any prior experience in building this type of infrastructure Requires artificial intelligence agents – Make project management credentials as important as megawatts.
VanEck’s deal tracker points to a busy second half of 2026, with multiple companies — including Bitdeer (BTDR), HIVE Digital (HIVE), Riot Platforms (RIOT), and Core Scientific (CORZ) — in various stages of active or advanced lease negotiations. WULF is described as being in “advanced negotiations” for a 480-megawatt site in Kentucky, and is expected to land a customer in the second quarter.
A $221 billion construction – and who can pay for it?
The capital requirements for this hub are staggering. Van Eck estimates that the sector’s long-term capital spending needs are close to $221 billion, with near-term needs alone creating a collective financing shortfall of about $50 billion above current cash positions.
Dispersion within the group is wide. HIVE is facing the most severe pressures on its market value, driven by AI Gigafactory ambitions targeting more than 100,000 GPUs. IREN and KEEL carry the next heaviest loads in the near term. By contrast, WULF and CIFR appear to be in a relatively better position, having already secured key deals under contract that help de-risk their capital.
Financing methods vary greatly. Companies with Bitcoin treasury holdings – including MARA (35,303 BTC), CLSK (13,561 BTC), and HUT (13,696 BTC) – can rely on Bitcoin monetization strategies to build microfunding.
REN, which has a significant near-term funding need with no BTC treasury to draw from, faces a narrower set of options: dilutive equity issues or additional debt.
VanEck: Bitcoin exposure is overrated
The report also challenges the extent to which the market relates to the entire spectrum of Bitcoin prices. While the group’s average daily return correlation to BTC is about 0.55 year to date and its average one-year beta is about 1.05, VanEck says the dynamic overstates Bitcoin’s true sensitivity to the sector for companies that have moved largely.
Only MARA (with a BTC sensitive value equal to ~98% of market cap), CLSK (~53%), and RIOT (~23%) carry meaningful balance sheet exposure to BTC price fluctuations. On the other end, CORZ, WULF, APLD, and IREN were effectively separated.
The analysis shows that a Bitcoin drop to $50,000 would erase roughly 45% of MARA’s stock value and nearly 50% of HIVE’s value, while only reducing 4% of HUT’s value – underscoring how poorly the “one BTC trade” framework captures the increasingly disparate nature of the group.
Van Eyck She expects valuations will eventually move away from megawatt numbers toward delivery ratios, unit economics, and eventually discounted cash flow models — at which point these companies will start to resemble data center REITs more than miners.
The company expects that many of them could eventually be sold or converted into REITs as their AI revenues mature.
Currently, VanEck sees the greatest re-rating potential in the names with the widest gap between aspiration and current market prices – HIVE, KEEL, IREN, Bitdeer – while recognizing that those same names carry the highest execution risk. Companies that already have fundamental deals in hand, such as WULF, CIFR and HUT, offer a more conservative path to maximizing this advantage in their long-term market position.
