Bitfury, one of Bitcoin’s earliest industrial miners, is exiting mining to become an investment firm focused on “ethical emerging technologies,” including artificial intelligence and crypto.
The company said in a press release that it plans to deploy up to US$1 billion (AU$1.53 billion) into AI and crypto startups starting as early as the fourth quarter of 2025. The capital will come from Bitfury’s past mining operations, prior investments, and a network of outside backers, according to the announcement.
This next chapter unites mission-driven investors and founders — people who have built with purpose — to support the next generation of innovators who share that calling. Together we can align innovation with values and build technologies that make people more independent, creative, and free.
Val Vavilov, Co-founder and CEO of Bitfury. Related: Standard Chartered Analyst Says Bitcoin Sell-Off Has Bottomed, Eyes Year-End Rally
Founded in 2011, Bitfury was among the first major Bitcoin miners and later spun out Cipher Mining (CIFR) and Hut 8 (HUT), which are now the second- and seventh-largest publicly listed Bitcoin miners by market capitalisation, respectively.
But rising costs and network difficulty have pushed Bitfury and several other miners to scale back or repurpose their infrastructure. For instance, IREN recently shifted from BTC mining to AI, unveiling a cloud business anchored by NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPUs.
Moving on, Bitfury told Fortune it will focus its new investment strategy on AI, quantum computing, and “transparent decentralised systems”.
Vavilov said the company sees “big synergy between AI and decentralized systems” and added that self-sovereign identity solutions using cryptography are a key target area. The firm already has exposure to the AI sector through LiquidStack, an immersion-cooling venture for data centers, and Axelera AI, a Netherlands-based chip company it co-founded.
Related: Singapore to Launch Bitcoin and Ether Perpetual Futures, Bringing Regulated Structure to a US$187B Crypto Market
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