The Link Between AI, Energy And Bitcoin<\/h2>\n
Ju\u2019s comments were posted alongside a long-form X post by Hashed CEO Simon Kim titled Monetizing Energy: Redefining Bitcoin\u2019s Role in the AI Era, which argues that the old \u201cenergy waste\u201d critique is being overtaken by an AI data center buildout that is rewriting the value of mining infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Kim\u2019s core claim is that the debate has shifted from morality to grid economics and industrial pragmatism. \u201cThe oldest criticism of Bitcoin has always been about energy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cClaims that it \u2018wastes electricity,\u2019 \u2018destroys the environment,\u2019 and \u2018competes with data centers for power\u2019 have been repeated for over a decade, solidifying into conventional wisdom. But in 2026, this debate no longer resides in the realm of moral condemnation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thread points to capital flows as a tell. Kim highlighted Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala\u2019s $437 million allocation to BlackRock\u2019s Bitcoin ETF in Q4 2024, followed by a partnership with Oman\u2019s sovereign wealth fund to back Crusoe Energy and launch the Middle East\u2019s first flare-gas mining operation. In October 2025, Mubadala co-led Crusoe\u2019s Series E with a $1.375 billion check, pushing the company\u2019s valuation above $10 billion\u2014at which point Crusoe said it would divest its Bitcoin mining division and focus fully on AI infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Kim\u2019s thesis is that miners have already done the hard, unglamorous work AI now needs: securing power, mastering high-density thermal management, and building operational muscle around flexible load. He also leaned on an Elon Musk quote\u00a0from a November 2025 podcast: \u201cEnergy is the true currency. This is why I say Bitcoin is based on energy. You can\u2019t just pass a law and suddenly have a lot of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A recurring theme in Kim\u2019s post is that electricity\u2019s constraints (locality, immediacy, and transmission losses) make flexibility economically valuable. He cited early examples like Sichuan hydropower curtailment exceeding 20 billion kWh by 2020, and argued that miners became a buyer of last resort for energy that couldn\u2019t be stored or sold.<\/p>\n
Globally, he claimed curtailed renewable energy exceeds 200TWh annually, representing more than $20 billion in economic losses, positioning Bitcoin mining as an instant monetization path for surplus generation.<\/p>\n
In Texas, Kim pointed to ERCOT\u2019s classification of mining as a controllable load resource, citing Riot Blockchain cutting power usage by 98\u201399% during the 2022 winter storm and receiving $31.7 million in power credits during an August 2023 heatwave, more than it would have earned mining that month. The framing is less \u201cminers versus data centers\u201d and more \u201cpremium uptime workloads versus interruptible demand that stabilizes the grid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim also argued the environmental critique is changing on the margin as the industry\u2019s energy mix shifts. He claimed more than half of mining now comes from sustainable sources, exceeding 52%, while coal dependence fell from 36% to under 9%.<\/p>\n
On methane, he described flare-gas mining as an emissions arbitrage: methane has \u201c80 times\u201d the greenhouse effect of CO2, flaring combusts 93% with 7% escaping, while using gas for mining combusts over 99%, cutting CO2-equivalent emissions by over 60% versus flaring.<\/p>\n
The forward implication of Ju\u2019s framing is that if AI accelerates the premium on reliable power and buildout speed, Bitcoin\u2019s value proposition may increasingly be argued in the language of energy markets: measuring, monetizing, and transporting scarcity.<\/p>\n
Kim\u2019s closing challenge was explicit: shift the question from consumption totals to system outcomes, suggesting the next phase of the debate will center on where miners sit in the stack of AI-era infrastructure, not whether they exist:<\/p>\n
\u201cAI operates where continuous uptime is essential; Bitcoin operates where flexibility has value. Governments can print money, but they cannot print energy. Bitcoin’s proof-of-work is the mechanism that brings this physical reality into the digital economy. It’s a technology that takes energy from one place and transports it anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $86,779.<\/p>\n
![\"Bitcoin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbtc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BTCUSDT_2026-01-29_16-00-53.png?resize=1024%2C499\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju revived the \u201cBitcoin equals energy\u201d thesis on Wednesday, arguing that proof-of-work is becoming the settlement layer for an AI-driven economy where power, not narratives, is the binding constraint. In a post on X, Ju framed Bitcoin as a digital instrument that can price energy with precision in a way commodities…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245],"tags":[398,22,28,29,32,33,34,1904],"class_list":["post-9712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bitcoin-news","tag-ai","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-news","tag-bitcoin-price","tag-btc","tag-btc-news","tag-btc-price","tag-ki-young-ju"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ad-doge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}