Bitcoin mining stocks down after Microsoft scraps data center plans

Update (March 26 at 8:48 PM UTC): This article has been updated to include commentary from Benchmark stock analyst Mark Palmer.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks are down after tech giant Microsoft reportedly scrapped plans to invest in new artificial intelligence data centers in the US and Europe, citing a potential oversupply, according to a report by Bloomberg and data from Google Finance.

Shares of crypto miners Bitfarms, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Hut 8, Marathon Digital and Riot dropped between 4% and 12% in tandem with the news, the data showed.

The stock price retrenchments highlight cryptocurrency miners’ increased dependence on business from artificial intelligence models after the Bitcoin network’s April 2024 “halving” cut into mining revenues.

According to Benchmark stock analyst Mark Palmer, investors already anticipated Microsoft’s data center cuts.

In his view, the share price pullback “appears to be driven more by stagnation in the price of bitcoin than any other factor, potentially combined with investor fatigue settling over the space as mining difficulty remains near record levels,” Palmer told Cointelegraph.

Miners are “diversifying into AI data-center hosting as a way to expand revenue and repurpose existing infrastructure for high-performance computing,” Coin Metrics said in a March report.

For example, in June 2024, Core Scientific pledged 200 megawatts of hardware capacity to support CoreWeave’s artificial intelligence workloads.

In August 2024, asset manager VanEck said Bitcoin mining stocks could collectively see a roughly $37 billion bump to market capitalizations if they invest heavily in supporting AI.

Nevertheless, miners have struggled this year as declining crypto prices worsen pressures on businesses already impacted by April’s halving, JPMorgan said in March. Waning demand for AI data centers could add further strain.

Related: Bet more on the Bitcoin miners cashing in on AI

Cutting back on compute

On March 26, analysts at TD Cowen said Microsoft had abandoned plans to build several new data centers that would have generated some 2 gigawatts of power, according to Bloomberg. 

The analysts reportedly attributed Microsoft’s pullback to a perceived oversupply of computing capacity for AI models, as well as the tech giant’s decision to forgo some planned collaborations with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. 

In the past six months, Microsoft has canceled various data center leases and delayed plans to onboard more capacity, according to Bloomberg. 

Microsoft’s data center investments are expected to slow further in the second half of 2025 as the company finishes $80 billion in planned buildouts and pivots to outfitting existing centers with hardware and equipment, Bloomberg said. 

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge