Weekly roundup: Bitcoin miners are massively pivoting to AI, and neural networks are becoming hackers' weapons.
The outgoing week was eventful: the leading cryptocurrency pulled back to August lows, miners are massively converting mined coins into AI infrastructure, and artificial intelligence has firmly established itself in the arsenal of cybercriminals. Plus, Moscow law enforcement struck a blow at cash exchange at "Gorbushka."
Bitcoin under pressure again
July's optimism gave way to disappointment. On August 14, bitcoin broke below the $63,000 mark, retreating to levels seen at the start of the month. The previous week closed at $65,200, but bulls lacked the momentum to attack resistance levels. Analysts pointed to zones at $67,000 and $72,000, calculated based on the realized price of short-term holders, yet the market ignored these benchmarks.
Glassnode specialists described the situation as "compressed": the asset is squeezed between the median realized price of $63,000 and the cost basis of short-term investors at $68,700. A break below the lower boundary, in their estimation, opens a direct path to $58,500. By the end of the week, bitcoin settled near $63,000, losing 3.3% over seven days. Ether slipped 2.1% to $1,880, and among major altcoins, only Hyperliquid's token was in the green (+4.7%).
Institutional demand also weakened: spot bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow since early July at $398.7 million. Ether funds lost $2.2 million after an inflow of $244.9 million the previous week. The fear and greed index stalled at 34 points—in the "fear" zone—and the total market capitalization fell from $2.22 trillion to $2.17 trillion.
Miners sell BTC for an AI future
The sell-off of mined coins by miners is no longer a crisis measure—it is a deliberate strategy of transitioning to AI infrastructure. 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 signed a 20-year contract worth $9.1 billion with a leading AI lab within days, sold 4,300 BTC, and raised up to $573 million for the construction of an AI campus in Texas.
The scale is impressive: MARA sold 23,093 BTC from January to June for approximately $1.6 billion, citing operational funding and liquidity management as reasons. Hyperscale Data also joined the list, selling 685 BTC for $43 million to fund its own data center.
The economics of mining are indeed pushing toward a pivot: miners' revenue from fees has fallen to a ten-year low, and the realized hashrate of public companies has dropped by 21.2% over three quarters. This is a tectonic shift—an industry tied to BTC mining for decades is reinventing itself on the fly to cater to the AI economy.
AI in the hands of hackers
Neural networks have finally become a double-edged weapon. The story of AnchorWatch CEO Rob Hamilton is telling: he used OpenAI's capabilities to audit bitcoin infrastructure but lost access within a day. Meanwhile, attackers are not constrained by anything—South Korean analysts recorded the use of local AI systems by the Kimsuky group in attacks on crypto companies. Taiwanese government agencies also revealed details of a hack using AI agents.
The founders of the Boltz service handed the project to a group of veterans after a series of attacks allegedly carried out using neural networks. The July campaign against Coldcard hardware wallets has concluded: at least 1,778.84 BTC ($112.7 million) was stolen, with no new incidents reported after August 6. Manufacturers are also suffering reputational losses: Trezor reported a data leak affecting 13,689 users through a logistics partner, and SafePal reported the compromise of information from approximately 40,000 customers.
Notably, even model developers acknowledge the risks: Anthropic found issues with trust, deception, and collusion in multi-agent systems. This is a signal that AI attacks will only continue to evolve.
Pressure on crypto exchange in Russia
On the evening of August 13, mass searches took place at Moscow's "Gorbushka" shopping center in a case involving crypto exchangers. Simultaneously, major Russian banks began requesting explanations from legal entities regarding USDT transactions, demanding confirmation that the counterparty is included in the Central Bank's register of digital currency exchange operators—which does not yet exist. The regulator plans to create it only in the fall.
Experts link the inspections to banks' logic of self-insurance and an initiative by Rosfinmonitoring, which fits within Federal Law 115. The uncertainty will not last long: the law "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" takes effect on September 1, and the State Duma is already considering a bill on criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency circulation with confiscation.
Institutions expand their presence
Israel's largest bank announced a partnership with Galaxy Digital—clients will gain access to trading in bitcoin, ether, and Solana. Norway's sovereign wealth fund disclosed a stake in BitMine worth $81.9 million. However, bitcoin treasuries risk losing their place in indices: Strategy and Metaplanet may be excluded from the MSCI calculation base. The legislative track is stalling: the probability of the Clarity Act passing is estimated at only 10% after the Senate vote was postponed to September 15.
My comment: The miners' pivot toward AI is not a temporary market trend but a structural shift. If mining profitability continues to decline, we will see further consolidation of the industry and a flow of capital into high-performance computing. For bitcoin, this means reduced sell pressure in the long term, but in the short term, the market will have to digest significant volumes of sell-offs. As for AI attacks—this is a new reality to which the security industry will have to adapt much faster than to traditional threats.