Bitcoin Miners Must Own Power—or Die Trying Before Next Halving, MARA CEO Says
MARA CEO Fred Thiel warns that only Bitcoin miners controlling energy or pivoting to AI will survive increasing competition and shrinking margins.Summary
Fred Thiel, CEO of MARA Holdings, asserts that the Bitcoin mining industry is entering a brutal, zero-sum phase where energy cost is the ultimate floor for profitability. He predicts that only miners who secure low-cost, reliable energy sources or successfully pivot to adjacent fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI) or High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure will survive, especially leading up to the 2028 halving.
Thiel noted that hardware vendors are increasingly mining themselves, and the growing global hashrate continuously shrinks everyone else's margins. He emphasized that the expected rise in transaction fees to replace the block subsidy has not materialized sufficiently. If Bitcoin's price does not grow by 50% or more annually, the economics become unsustainable post-2028.
MARA's strategy is to maintain the lowest production costs so that 75% of competitors must shut down first. Thiel concluded that by 2028, miners must either generate their own power, be owned by a power generator, or be partnered with one, stating that the era of simply plugging into the grid is ending.
(Source：CoinDesk)