Miners sacrifice bitcoin for AI, and neural networks become hackers' weapons: weekly recap
The outgoing week was eventful: bitcoin again slipped to August lows, miners are massively converting mined coins into AI infrastructure, and neural networks have finally cemented their place in the arsenal of cybercriminals. I break down the key events in detail.
Bitcoin: the rebound fizzled out
The July momentum has completely faded. On August 14, the leading cryptocurrency broke below the $63,000 mark, returning to levels seen at the start of the month, although trading had closed at $65,200 a week earlier. Notably, in the first few days it seemed the market would move higher — CryptoQuant analysts pointed to resistance in the $67,000 and $72,000 zones, calculated based on the realized price of short-term holders, while BlackRock stated that investor sentiment had turned.
However, the market structure, as Glassnode rightly noted, remained "compressed." The price was stuck between the median realized price ($63,000) and the cost basis of short-term investors ($68,700). A break below the lower boundary of this range opened a direct path to the $58,500 target, which I consider quite realistic under current seller pressure. Over the seven days, the asset lost 3.3%, settling near $63,000. Ethereum fell 2.1% to $1,880, and among the top cryptocurrencies, only the Hyperliquid token stayed in positive territory (+4.7%).
Institutional demand also weakened: spot bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow since early July at $398.7 million, while ether funds lost $2.2 million. The fear and greed index froze at 34 points in the "fear" zone, and the total market capitalization slipped from $2.22 trillion to $2.17 trillion.
Miners: the new economics of mining
The main trend of the week is a shift in the business model among public miners. Selling bitcoin is no longer a crisis measure but has become a deliberate strategy to fund AI projects. Former Bitfarms, now Keel Infrastructure, has fully decommissioned its mining sites in the US, preparing them for data centers for high-performance computing.
Riot Platforms went through this path in a few days: signed a 20-year capacity lease contract with an AI lab worth $9.1 billion, sold 4,300 BTC, and raised up to $573 million to build an AI campus in Texas. MARA sold 23,093 BTC for approximately $1.6 billion in the first half of the year. This is not a coincidence but a pattern: fee income has fallen to a ten-year low, and the hashrate of public companies has declined by 21.2% over three quarters. The economics of mining no longer justify the costs without diversification.
AI: a double-edged weapon
It is telling that restrictions on the use of AI in cybersecurity only hit defenders. Bitcoin Red Team lost access to OpenAI tools, while the North Korean group Kimsuky actively uses local AI systems to attack crypto companies. Taiwanese government agencies have also been hacked using AI agents, and the creators of the Boltz service handed the project over to "bitcoin veterans" after a series of attacks.
At the same time, the July campaign against Coldcard hardware wallets has concluded: the final damage amounted to at least 1,778.84 BTC ($112.7 million). Other manufacturers also suffered reputational losses: data leaks affected 13,689 Trezor clients and about 40,000 SafePal users. Anthropic's research deserves special attention, as it revealed a tendency among groups of AI agents toward collusion and deception — a troubling signal for anyone building defensive systems on them.
Regulation: pressure is mounting
In Russia, law enforcement conducted mass searches at "Gorbushka" in connection with a case involving crypto exchangers, and banks have begun demanding that legal entities confirm the inclusion of counterparties in a non-existent Central Bank registry. This is the classic logic of financial organizations self-insuring, initiated by Rosfinmonitoring. Given that the "Digital Currency" law takes effect on September 1, and the State Duma is considering a bill on criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency circulation, pressure on the industry will only intensify.
Against this backdrop, institutional players continue to enter the market: Israel's largest bank is launching trading in bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, and Norway's sovereign wealth fund has disclosed a stake in BitMine worth $81.9 million. However, the legislative track in the US is stalling — the probability of the Clarity Act passing is estimated at only 10%.
My conclusion: the market is in a consolidation phase before a decisive move. The mass shift of miners into AI is not panic but a structural restructuring that will reduce selling pressure in the medium term. But as long as the fear index remains in the red zone and ETFs show outflows, buyers should exercise patience. The key level for bitcoin is $58,500: holding it will determine the trajectory through the end of the quarter.