Weekly roundup: bitcoin miners are massively winding down mining operations in favor of AI, while hackers are arming themselves with neural networks.
The outgoing week was marked by a dramatic shift in the strategy of the largest bitcoin miners, who began mass liquidating mined coins to fund their transition to AI infrastructure. In parallel, neural networks became a full-fledged tool for both cyberattacks and defense against them, while Moscow law enforcement conducted large-scale searches at the legendary "Gorbushka" market.
Bitcoin Pulled Back to August Lows
The market corrected July's optimism. On August 14, the leading cryptocurrency fell below $63,000, returning to levels from the start of the month, although the previous week closed at $65,200. Notably, the first days showed opposite signals: CryptoQuant analysts pointed to resistance in the $67,000 and $72,000 zones, while BlackRock stated that investor sentiment had turned and that the asset's dynamics had completely diverged from the stock market.
Glassnode specialists described the market as "compressed": the price was stuck between the median realized price of $63,000 and the cost basis of short-term holders at $68,700. A break below the lower boundary, in their assessment, opens a direct path to $58,500. The week's result — holding at the $63,000 mark with a 3.3% decline. Ethereum fell 2.1% to $1,880, and the only positive exception among major altcoins was the HYPE token of the Hyperliquid exchange, which gained nearly 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 after an inflow of $244.9 million the previous week. The fear and greed index stalled in the "fear" zone at 34 points, and the total market capitalization slipped from $2.22 trillion to $2.17 trillion.
Miners Trade Bitcoin for AI
The sell-off of mined coins is no longer a crisis measure — it is now a deliberate strategy. Four companies directed the proceeds over the week not to cover operating expenses, but to build AI infrastructure. Former Bitfarms, now Keel Infrastructure, fully decommissioned all its mining sites in the US, preparing them for data centers for high-performance computing.
Riot Platforms went through the entire cycle in a few days: signed a 20-year capacity lease contract with a leading AI lab worth $9.1 billion, sold 4,300 BTC, and raised up to $573 million for the construction of an AI campus in Texas. The scale of sales by the largest US miner MARA is impressive: from January to June, the company sold 23,093 BTC for approximately $1.6 billion. Hyperscale Data joined the list, selling 685 BTC for $43 million.
The economics of mining explain this turnaround: miners' revenue from fees fell to a ten-year low, and the realized hashrate of public companies declined by 21.2% over three quarters. It seems we are witnessing a structural shift — mining is ceasing to be an independent business and is becoming a transitional stage toward more profitable AI projects.
Neural Networks in the Hands of Hackers and Defenders
AI tools are becoming an arena of confrontation. Volunteers of Bitcoin Red Team faced access restrictions to OpenAI and were forced to return to Chinese models. Meanwhile, the attacking side does not experience such difficulties: South Korean analysts reported that the North Korea-linked group Kimsuky uses local AI systems for attacks on crypto companies, and Taiwan revealed details of a hack of government institutions using AI agents.
The founders of the non-custodial service Boltz handed the project over to a group of "bitcoin veterans" after a series of attacks presumably carried out by malicious actors using neural networks. The July campaign against Coldcard hardware wallets concluded: according to Galaxy Research estimates, at least 1,778.84 BTC ($112.7 million) was stolen from vulnerable devices. Manufacturers also suffered reputational losses: Trezor reported a data leak of 13,689 clients through a breach of a logistics partner, and SafePal reported that information on about 40,000 users fell into the wrong hands.
Pressure on Crypto Exchanges in Russia
On the evening of August 13, large-scale searches were conducted at the Moscow shopping center "Gorbushka" in a case involving crypto exchange offices. Pressure on cash exchange coincided with stricter banking compliance: major banks began requesting explanations from corporate clients 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.
Crypto expert Viktor Pershikov links the checks not to a direct instruction from the regulator, but to the logic of banks' self-insurance and an initiative by Rosfinmonitoring. The uncertainty will not last long: the law "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" comes into force on September 1, and the State Duma is considering a bill on criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency circulation with confiscation of exchanged assets.
Against this backdrop, institutional players continue to enter the market: Israel's largest bank announced a partnership with Galaxy Digital for trading bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, while Norway's sovereign wealth fund disclosed a stake in BitMine worth $81.9 million. The legislative track in the US, by contrast, is stalling: the probability of the Clarity Act passing is estimated at only 10%.
My comment: This week showed that mining as an industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation, and bitcoin sales are just the tip of the iceberg. Investors should closely monitor how major players are reallocating capital: the shift to AI infrastructure may prove more profitable than mining, but it also creates new risks of centralization and dependence on a single sector.