The Web3 + AI Daily #48
BTC miners investing in ethical AI or switching to AI altogether, and the stablecoin giant Tether committing to building AI as a public good.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to all newly-joined subscribers!
This is The Web3 + AI Daily, your definitive guide to the world of Decentralized AI (DeAI/dAI)! The DeAI market cap has modestly grown (1%) over the last 24 hours, while the tech world is on pins and needles waiting for NVIDIA‘s earnings announcement today. In the meantime, crypto continues to take a leading role in AI computing.
Thank you for being here! Let’s dive in.
What’s Hot in Web3 + AI?
Bitfarms Leaves BTC Mining for AI
The inevitable is happening. For months now, I have been reporting that major BTC mining companies are dedicating resources to AI computing in search of higher profits and less uncertainty. These moves make total sense business-wise, given Bitcoin’s volatility and regular decrease in mining rewards, along with the huge demand for AI computing capacities worldwide. However, they raise the burning question: what will happen when all major miners exit the industry altogether?
As I have covered here, BTC mining giants like CleanSpark, TeraWulf, Cipher Digital, and IREN have all bet on AI. Now, Bitfarms joins their ranks, announcing plans to wind down mining operations entirely and shift focus toward artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC).
Financial pressures helped drive this decision: in Q3 2025, Bitfarms posted a $46M net loss on $68M in revenue. Meanwhile, the company secured a $128M deal with a U.S. data center partner to convert its Washington state facility (18 MW) into a GPU-as-a-Service site.
Bitfarms said that even though the Washington site is a small part of its pipeline (~1%), it could generate more net income than its previous Bitcoin mining operations.
Bitfury Pledges $1B to Support Ethical Tech and AI
In the meantime, another Bitcoin miner, Bitfury is also pivoting from purely mining, but by taking a different approach. The company is turning into an ethical tech investor and launching a $1B fund, with $200M to be deployed as early as next year. Its key focus areas will include artificial intelligence, quantum computing, self-sovereign identity (giving individuals control over their data), and transparent decentralized systems.
Bitfury’s leadership sees a strong “synergy between AI and decentralized systems” and believes future innovation will combine both.
The company has a track record beyond mining: it co-founded LiquidStack (for data center cooling) and Axelera AI (for AI hardware/software).
Tether Commits $150M, 22K Nvidia GPUs to Build AI as Public Good
Another crypto behemoth, the stablecoin issuer Tether.io, is also showing a keen and avid interest in the AI industry. The company recently committed to buy $150M worth of GPU services from Rumble, as soon as Rumble closes its acquisition of Northern Data.
As part of its broader strategy, Tether is also investing $100M in Rumble for advertising, especially to promote Rumble Wallet. Once completed, the merger would give Rumble access to over 22,000 NVIDIA GPUs (including H100s and H200s) and a global network of data centers.
Rumble, a “freedom-first” YouTube rival and Bitcoin treasury, is currently in the process of buying Northern Data, a German AI and high-performance computing infrastructure firm, in which Tether holds a controlling stake. The deal values Northern Data at roughly $800M, and its shareholders will receive 2.0281 new Rumble Class A shares per Northern Data share.
Rumble frames this deal as a “transformational” step to build a tech ecosystem rooted in freedom, privacy, independence, and resilience, away from Big Tech. Similarly, Tether’s stated aim is to build systems where AI is a public good, and support its QVAC (“Infinite Intelligence”) platform for open, transparent, user-focused AI and creator tools.
Web3 + AI Investment News
Acurast Gets $11M to Accelerate Mobile Decentralized Compute Network
Acurast Association raised $11M to accelerate its vision of turning smartphones into decentralized compute nodes. The round was backed by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Polkadot, peaq, Tezos Foundation, CoinList, Web3 Foundation, MN Capital, and more.
On its testnet, Acurast has already onboarded 149,000+ phones, supported 87,000+ deployments, and processed 492 million+ on-chain transactions, showing real traction. Its tech includes smartphones using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) so that tasks run securely and confidentially on users’ phones.
Acurast’s approach could reshape cloud infrastructure by removing reliance on centralized data centers and leveraging billions of existing smartphones instead.
The funding was to go toward Acurast’s Mainnet launch and Token Generation Event, which were scheduled for November 17th, but then postponed due to the negative market conditions at the moment.
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