Vitalik: bitcoin mining runs on power, AI on hardware
Vitalik Buterin's cost tables show bitcoin mining split about 50/50 between hardware and electricity, while AI inference spends roughly 76% on hardware.
CryptoGroup Newsroom · · 2 min read
Bitcoin miners chase cheap power. AI data centres chase chips. That one difference explains a lot about where each industry builds — and who wins when they compete for the same sites.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a pair of cost tables on Saturday arguing that bitcoin mining and AI inference have very different economics. "Bitcoin mining cost is split about 50/50 between compute capex and electricity," he wrote on X, while "AI inference is almost completely dominated by compute capex." The post did not spell out the assumptions behind the estimates.
The numbers he shared
| Cost item | Bitcoin mining, $/BTC | Share | AI inference, $/GPU-year | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compute capex (hardware, cooling, power gear, incl. financing) | ~37,600 | ~40% | ~19,900 | ~76% |
| Electricity into the computers | 40,600 | 43.3% | 1,050 | 4.0% |
| Other electricity | 2,400 | 2.6% | 210 | 0.8% |
| Labour | 3,200 | 3.4% | 1,400 | 5.3% |
| Facilities rent (incl. financing) | ~2,500 | 2.7% | ~900 | 3.4% |
| Other (maintenance, O&M, insurance, tax, bandwidth) | ~7,400 | ~7.9% | ~2,800 | ~10.7% |
Our take
The split is the story. For a miner, power is roughly half of every coin produced — counting "other electricity," a bit more — so the cheapest kilowatt-hour wins. For an AI operator, power is a rounding error next to the GPUs; access to chips and capital matters far more than the tariff.
That helps explain an industry trend of the past two years: listed miners leasing sites and grid connections to AI and high-performance computing clients. An AI tenant can afford to pay more for the same megawatt than a miner can earn from it, because electricity barely moves its cost base. Miners, meanwhile, own exactly what AI firms struggle to find quickly — energised land.
One more detail stands out. Buterin's line items add up to roughly $93,700 per bitcoin, above the $80,000–$82,000 range BTC traded in this week. He did not say which fleet, power price or period the figures assume, so it is not a statement about any single company. Still, it is a reminder of why monthly production updates such as CleanSpark's and BitFuFu's September numbers are watched so closely.
The broader point is about security. Bitcoin's proof of work turns energy into protection against rewriting history — which is exactly why the electricity column is so large.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Crypto assets are volatile; do your own research. Read our disclaimer
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