The transfer of treasury to AI was treated coldly, and mining companies broke through with the advantage of electricity

According to Woofun AI, as cryptocurrency prices continue to fall, the previously sought-after crypto treasury stock market has fallen into a slump. At least a dozen digital asset treasury companies have switched to AI-related businesses in recent months, but the stock price performance is generally poor. In contrast, Bitcoin mining companies that have transformed AI computing infrastructure have been recognized by investors based on their existing land and energy resource advantages, and the two types of transformation paths have shown significant differentiation. Foresight News reporter Nicky pointed out on July 27 that this phenomenon revealed the capital market's distinct valuation logic for “asset-light cross-border” and “asset-heavy extension.” Crypto treasury stocks failed to boost confidence, and Bitcoin mining companies relied on energy advantages to successfully break through and become the focus of current market attention.

Judging from macro market data, the foundations of the crypto treasury model are being shaken. According to data tracked by Bloomberg, US and Canadian crypto treasury stocks saw a median decline of 43% during the year. Underlying asset performance was also weak: Bitcoin fell 49% from its peak in October last year, down 27% during the year; Ethereum fell 38% during the year, down 62% from its all-time high in August 2025.

This downward pressure directly impacted the crypto treasury model pioneered by Strategy (MSTR.US) founder Michael Saylor in 2020. Strategy (MSTR.US) shares have accumulated a cumulative increase of more than 3000% from the end of 2019 to an all-time high in November 2024, but since then it has fallen 81%, and the company continues to sell its Bitcoin holdings. As the overall crypto market cooled down, a number of treasury companies began to set their sights on the AI circuit to try to reshape valuation logic through business transformation, but the results were not ideal.

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, many companies' transformation attempts have yet to be recognized by the market, and their stock prices have suffered a severe setback. K Wave Media (KWVE.US)'s stock price fell 71% since announcing the transformation of the data center business in May of this year, and is currently at $0.117, with a market value of about $9.18 million. The company previously mainly operated the Korean entertainment content business. Around 2025, it switched to a Bitcoin vault strategy to raise funds to buy and hold Bitcoin. Now it is also trying to enter the AI infrastructure field through acquisitions and investments. Continuous cross-border adjustments have made the market question its ability to execute.

Biotech company Lixte Biotechnology (LIXT.US), whose stock price fell 33% since agreeing to merge with the battery company in June, has now changed its name to NOMAD Power Solutions (NMAD.US), and the stock code has also changed to NMAD (NMAD.US). Currently, the stock price is 4.43 US dollars, and the market value is about 84 million US dollars. The company originally focused on oncology drug research and development. In 2025, it allocated millions of dollars in Bitcoin and Ethereum to diversify its treasury. Now it is entering the AI data center power market through the acquisition of a removable battery energy storage system company, making investors cautious about the span from biotechnology to energy equipment.

AlphaTon Capital's stock price has dropped 33% since it changed its name to Alpha Compute in April. The company's predecessor, Portage Biotech (PRTG.US), switched to the TON ecosystem digital asset vault strategy in 2025, and has now transformed to deploy GPU clusters and provide AI cloud services. Frequent changes in positioning have heightened market concerns about its strategic stability.

It is no accident that the company's transformation has been blocked as described above. The underlying reason is that most of their AI transformation strategies are “grabbing hot spots” to save stock prices. In fact, most of them are financial or strategic business shifts, and they generally lack the physical assets and industry accumulation needed to operate AI infrastructure. Data centers are a typical asset-heavy industry, requiring large-scale capital investment, professional operating teams, and long-term customer relationships. For companies that announce transformation only by announcing acquisitions or names, investors often choose to wait and see rather than follow suit. In contrast to this, Bitcoin mining companies had already accumulated key physical asset moats before the transformation. AI training and inference require extremely high electricity, and resources such as grid access, new power capacity approval, and land permits are highly scarce. Building a new data center often takes years from scratch and faces multiple barriers. Bitcoin mining companies have previously obtained utility interconnection agreements, power purchase agreements, and energy quotas in advance for high-power mining, and also have large areas of land and supporting infrastructure suitable for data centers. This accumulation of electricity, land, and industry forms a competitive barrier that is difficult to replicate quickly.

The data performance of successful mining enterprise transformation cases further confirms this logic. CoreWeave (CRWV.US) currently has a market capitalization of about 40 billion US dollars, up 80% from its stock price since listing in March 2025, and is currently at $67.3. The company started with Ethereum mining in 2017 and switched to GPU-accelerated cloud computing services in 2019. It has now become a major AI cloud provider, operating 49 data centers in North America and Europe, with more than 1 gigawatt of active electricity and a contracted power capacity of 3.5 gigawatts, serving customers including OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT.US).

Hut 8 (HUT.US) shares rose all the way from $11.87 in April 2025 to $140.8 in June 2026, and now stands at $101.14, with a market capitalization of approximately $11.3 billion. The company is positioned as an energy infrastructure platform integrating electricity, digital infrastructure, and computing resources. Its Beacon Point project in Texas has 1 gigawatt of utility capacity and has signed an interconnection agreement. The AI data center portfolio has contracted about 949 megawatts of IT capacity and 1,330 megawatts of corresponding utility capacity.

Iren (IREN.US)'s stock price rose from $6.178 in April 2025 to $76.87 in November of the same year, and is currently at $33.93, with a market capitalization of about $12.1 billion. The company has approximately 5 gigawatts of safe electricity capacity distributed across 6 North American locations, covering a total area of approximately 4,900 acres, all powered by renewable energy. TeraWulf (WULF.US) shares rose from $2.71 in April 2025 to $29.84 in June 2026, with the biggest increase of more than 1000%. Currently, it is at $17.09, with a market capitalization of about $8.5 billion.

The company controls approximately 2.3 gigawatts of power capacity, and its Nautilus facility uses nuclear meters to supply electricity directly from the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The historical contract cost is about 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is one of the lowest levels in the industry. On July 28, Frank Holmes, executive chairman of HIVE Digital Technologies (HIVE.US), revealed on TheStreet Roundtable that the company's computing power business is speeding up the shift from Bitcoin mining to GPU computing power leasing, and the hourly revenue of mining machines has increased from $0.14 to $2 per hour for the GPU business. This shows that mining companies with physical assets of electricity and land have a structural advantage in AI infrastructure competition.