Bitcoin mining in 2025: IREN emerges on top while Bitdeer underperforms

A pivot toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure proved decisive for bitcoin miners in 2025, separating top-performing stocks from those that remained largely tied to bitcoin production.

With the year nearing its end, bitcoin (BTC) is down about 7% year-to-date, lagging behind traditional risk assets such as gold, the S&P 500 and major technology shares, which have continued to set new highs. That underperformance filtered through to mining equities, where returns diverged sharply based on business strategy.

Public miners that leaned aggressively into AI and HPC delivered standout gains. IREN (IREN) led the sector with a roughly 300% year-to-date rally, driven by large GPU cloud agreements and support from Microsoft. Cipher Mining (CIFR) followed closely, up around 230% as it scaled AI hosting operations, including expanded partnerships with Fluidstack. Hut 8 (HUT) also surged, gaining about 139%, helped by its announcement of a $7 billion, 15-year lease to develop a 245-megawatt AI data center at its River Bend facility in Louisiana.

The picture was markedly different for miners with the largest bitcoin treasuries. Marathon Digital (MARA), the sector’s biggest BTC holder with 53,250 bitcoin, is down roughly 44% on the year. CleanSpark (CLSK), holding 13,011 BTC, and Riot Platforms (RIOT), with 19,324 BTC, posted more modest gains of 16% and 32%, respectively, after moving more slowly into AI-related initiatives.

Core Scientific (CORZ) chose to remain independent after shareholders rejected a $9 billion all-stock takeover proposal from CoreWeave in October. While the company is positioning itself to capture rising AI demand, its shares are up just 9% year-to-date.

Bitdeer Technologies (BTDR) ranked as the sector’s weakest performer, with shares down roughly 50% in 2025. Much of the decline followed its third-quarter earnings report, which showed a larger-than-expected net loss and delays to its ASIC chip rollout, heightening uncertainty around its AI expansion plans.

Overall, the year underscored a clear trend: miners that successfully repositioned their infrastructure for AI data center use materially outperformed those that remained pure-play bitcoin operators.