A new framework from wealth manager VanEck shows the clear lines between Bitcoin miners who are honestly turning into creative innovators and those who are still selling news. All of this comes with a price tag: about $50 billion is approaching the cost of the shortfall between pipeline ambitions and actual delivery.
In research NoticeVanEck analyst Griffin MacMaster and Director of Digital Assets Research Matthew Sigel described what he describes as the first digital asset accounting system for the growing industry. Bitcoin mining and AI data center hosting.
With financial statements diverging across the sector and revenue trends, VanEck says the cleanest metric available to investors right now is energy efficiency — specifically, how many megawatts a company has turned on, not just the announcement.
The difference between these two things is already apparent. Companies with physical leases in hand – including Cipher Mining (CIFR), Hut 8 (HUT), and TeraWulf (WULF) – are managing valuations above 10x leverage.
Meanwhile, names like Marathon Digital (MARA) and CleanSpark (CLSK), which are closely related to Bitcoin mining with limited AI capabilities, are trading at 2-6x the same metric.
“Currently, we see the market paying for labor and energy costs, discounting anything that remains,” analysts wrote.
Signing contracts, VanEck warns, is just the beginning. Among its peers, miners have only provided about 25% of their rental capacity – a figure the company expects to drop significantly before it changes, as major construction projects begin in 2027 and 2028.
This difference is expected to be a major price driver going forward, as companies miss out on major construction events that VanEck calls “systematic downsizing.”
The researchers also point out that very few of these companies have the ability to produce quality construction AI customers need it – making project management information as important as megawatts calculations.
VanEck’s deal tracker shows the second half of 2026, with several companies — including Bitdeer ( BTDR ), HIVE Digital ( HIVE ), Riot Platforms ( RIOT ), and Core Scientific ( CORZ ) — in various stages of negotiation or leadership. WULF is described as “advanced negotiations” for a 480MW facility in Kentucky, which is expected to bring a customer in the second phase.
Construction of $ 221 billion – and who will pay
The fundamentals of this pivot are amazing. VanEck estimates long-term capital expenditures to be close to $221 billion, with short-term needs alone accounting for about $50 billion less than the current budget.
Dispersion within the group is high. HIVE is facing the biggest challenge in its market, driven by its ambitious AI Gigafactory targeting more than 100,000 GPUs. IREN and KEEL carry a heavy load that is about to expire. In contrast, WULF and CIFR look better, having already secured anchor contracts that allow them to take risks to raise their capital.
Funding strategies vary widely. Companies with Bitcoin Treasury Holdings – including MARA (35,303 BTC), CLSK (13,561 BTC), and HUT (13,696 BTC) – can rely on Bitcoin financing methods for construction work.
REN, which has a major short-term funding need with no BTC reserves to draw from, is faced with a number of options: limited issuance or increased debt.
VanEck: Bitcoin exposure has increased
The report also criticizes how the market interacts with the entire group and Bitcoin prices. Although the group’s average daily-return correlation BTC is running around 0.55 per year and the average one-year beta is around 1.05, VanEck says that the major overstates the true part of Bitcoin we have in the industry that has moved a lot.
Only MARA (which has a BTC-sensitive value equal to ~98% of the market cap), CLSK (~53%), and RIOT (~23%) carry better exposure to Bitcoin price fluctuations. At the other end, CORZ, WULF, APLD, and IREN are clearly separated.
The analysis shows that Bitcoin’s drop to $50,000 would remove about 45% of MARA’s value and about 50% of HIVE’s, while shaving 4% from HUT’s – proving how “one BTC trade” favors the group’s oversupply.
VanEck he expects the calculations to eventually move from the number of megawatts to the number of deliveries, the economy of the group, and finally the methods of reducing costs – at a time when these companies will begin to resemble data REITs more than miners.
The company expects that many may be sold or converted to REITs as their AI investments grow.
Currently, VanEck sees a great opportunity to renew the names that have a large gap between the aspirations and the current prices – HIVE, KEEL, IREN, and Bitdeer – while admitting that the same names have a high risk of execution. Companies with anchor trading already in hand, such as WULF, CIFR, and HUT, offer a more straightforward way to integrate this opportunity into a long-term market.
