Cryptocurrency mining companies that have successfully navigated a turbulent cryptocurrency market to survive have had to adapt by fundamentally changing their business models. A modern example of this is Hive Blockchain. Until about a year ago, Hive Blockchain focused its vast GPU resources (about 38,000 graphics cards) on Ethereum mining. Now that is changing. By pivoting to the latest trends in the computing industry, Hive is working on innovative projects to create and run AI workloads for its customers, aiming to generate significant new revenue streams. However, we do keep some GPU horsepower to run altcoin mining and other services just in case.
We previously discussed the tough post-Ethereum merge faced by companies like Hive Blockchain and Hut 8 Mining in early May. Both companies successfully reused their GPU farms and continued trading. We started learning what new HPC business they (and thousands of GPUs) were getting into.
new report from coin desk We’ve added an update on Hive Blockchain’s progress following the release of our latest financial report. Interestingly, Hive executives say there are several reasons why people and organizations prefer Hive’s services over his OpenAI and traditional tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon that offer AI and cloud services. points out.
Here’s why Hive chooses services over established technology giants:
- Access to a fleet of up to 38,000 GPUs for machine learning, AI computing workloads, and more
- A service agreement that promises to keep customer data private and away from public LLMs (Large Language Models)
- Choosing a rental-as-a-service or cloud business model
- Six years of proven track record as a data center builder and operator
Hive Blockchain is only halfway through business transformation. The company’s net loss for fiscal 2023 was $236.4 million, or a loss of $2.85 per share. In comparison, net income for fiscal 2022 was $79.6 million, or $1.02 per share. However, the decline in the Bitcoin valuation was the main driver of this change (-$182 million), as was the depreciation charge on the value of the equipment.still in the hive Dedicated ASIC for Bitcoin and almost $66 million worth of this cryptocurrency on the balance sheet.
of wall street journal We recently collected some quotes from other ex-cryptocurrency businesses transforming their services to reach new customers. One of his biggest contributors to this report is: Satoshi Spainpreviously sold and leased mining rigs, but now helps its customer base find new opportunities.
Satoshi Spain founder Alejandro Ibáñez de Pedro has aptly summed up the AI computing business as “Mining 2.0.” The rest of the report suggests that smaller AI computing providers, like the former cryptocurrency mining company, are niche markets by serving universities, startups and small developers who want more privacy. or may be too small to do business with large companies. players. Also, according to the WSJ, it’s important to realize that companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon are “close to full capacity at times” and therefore aren’t interested in smaller/niche users.
Switching from cryptocurrency mining to AI computing sounds simple and painless, but it really isn’t. Some of the older GPUs that were useful for ETH mining are of little value in the AI computing business. That means more investment will be needed to change course. Moreover, Hive Blockchain’s “success story” predicts revenue from his one-year run of an AI server business project on 500 GPUs to be only about $1 million. It’s a small potato compared to the balance sheet.
