Smoke from Nicaraguan cigars choked out the room as a heavy-set Bitcoin miner from the Deep South explained how the industry was expanding at an exponential rate.
“You have no idea,” he said at this year’s Mining Disrupt pre-party in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, before following up with the common Bitcoiner maxim—repeated by President Trump on the campaign trail—that you should never sell your stash.
Having been involved in the space since the early days, he recalled buying a Ferrari with orange coins years ago, which he said—with a laugh—he now regretted following the asset’s stratospheric rise.
Bitcoin hasn’t stopped climbing over the years and surged to new highs off the back of President Trump’s November victory. The new commander in chief promised during his campaign that he’d help the industry after regulators cracked down hard on crypto companies during ex-President Joe Biden’s tenure.
Some of the resulting optimism shined through at the event. However, there was also gloominess at the world’s biggest crypto mining expo this week, as those in the fast-moving and arcane industry admitted that they struggled to make ends meet in the increasingly competitive and high-cost world of Bitcoin mining.
Case in point: The price of Bitcoin is now down by 24% from its January all-time high, and trading hands for under $83,000. But mining difficulty has continued to surge to new records—and fast.
“It’s just so hard to keep up,” said one man with a small business in the cutthroat trade who asked not to be named. He quickly changed topics to talk about his Solana-based side hustle.
Weathering challenges
Mining Bitcoin is a convoluted, yet topical sphere in the crypto industry. Conceptually, people sort of get why it’s important for the space—President Trump even spoke about how vital it was to protect the business—but it’s too technical for many to wrap their heads around.
Even crypto people.
But the short of it is this: mining Bitcoin requires a lot of resources—namely cheap energy—to satiate loud, powerful machines that keep the payment network in check. Miners, which are typically large industrial operations, receive newly minted digital coins when they process a block on the blockchain.
As the network has grown—as it is supposed to—mining difficulty goes up. And it takes more manpower to stay in the business. When the price of BTC drops, selling the Bitcoin rewards may not be enough to cover the costs.
Basically, mining Bitcoin is no easy industry. And this was a common theme at the conference, including in discussions over ways for mining operations to diversify their operations.
“Bitcoin mining has a great opportunity here,” data center guru Chad Everett Harris enthusiastically exclaimed on a panel, all while trying to convince miners to dip their toes into operating AI businesses for extra cash—a growing trend.
Paul Li, CEO of mining technology provider Fog Hashing, added that miners simply couldn’t “miss” the opportunity to get stuck into the growing wave of AI.
But as Decrypt learned, moving from minting “digital gold” to running AI data centers isn’t easy—even for the big dogs.
If even Nasdaq-listed miners are daunted by the prospect of getting involved in the world of AI—a costly and complex venture—then where does that leave smaller players?
A new era?
Ahead of his win, President Trump claimed that under his watch, he’d push for all future Bitcoin to be 100% American-made.
Miners largely wanted to avoid talking politics with Decrypt, and there wasn’t a red hat in sight at the event—unlike the MAGA-heavy Bitcoin 2024 Nashville last summer. But there was a sense of relief among miners regarding the new administration.
“The new administration is pro-Bitcoin, pro-Bitcoin mining,” Shanon Squires from Compass Mining told Decrypt. “The geopolitical risk is gone—at least in my opinion.”
But as Bitcoin mining requires more resources as it becomes more mainstream, a crypto-friendly president might not be enough for the smaller players to hang around.
“It’s a real business,” added Squires. “You have to have efficiencies at scale. You have to know what they’re doing. You have to be cost-effective in your acquisition and your procurement, and run a real business.”
“It’s not like, you know, a crypto ICO where you make money out of nothing,” he concluded.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
