Multiple Bitcoin miners switch to AI just as chip stocks correct

Just as major stock markets begin to correct due to investor concerns about the AI-bubble, an increasing number of Bitcoin miners are choosing to lease their data centers to AI companies. That is called a juxtaposition and thus we have to wonder, is everything about to converge into a massive crash?

2 converging trends

Stock markets in Taiwan and Japan plummeted on Friday, with the US Nasdaq following suit later that day. Fortunately, South Korea’s KOSPI was closed for a public holiday, having already triggered its 37th so-called “circuit breaker” of the year on Thursday. It is expected the KOSPI will fall further on Monday.

Investors in both Asia and the US had taken out loans to capitalize on the massive AI boom of the past two years; while this yielded significant returns, a crash now looms and many small investors will be wiped out.

The initial signs of this correction have become increasingly apparent over the last few days.

CleanSpark - $CLSK

Just signed a $6.6 billion data center lease.

With an unnamed investment-grade technology company.

The agreement uses 175 megawatts of infrastructure originally built for Bitcoin mining.

— Leopold Aschenbrenner Stock Tracker (@LeoATracker) July 16, 2026

At the same time, various Bitcoin miners have shifted to leasing out a portion of their operations to AI companies. For Bitcoin miners, this was a welcome solution, given that the price of Bitcoin had effectively halved since October of last year.

We learned this week that CleanSpark, a prominent US Bitcoin miner, is now leasing a significant part of its operations to an unnamed AI company, generating around $6 billion in rental income. It all seems too good to be true, and it is rather unsettling that these two trends are converging right now. If AI crashes, will it drag crypto down with it?