AI-focused bitcoin miners Core Scientific, Cipher Mining hit hardest in crypto stock sell-off

Bitcoin miners and other cryptocurrency-related stocks are trading significantly lower in Monday's trading session. The sell-off was led by the Nasdaq, which was down more than 3.4% in midday trading after China-based DeepSeek released an artificial intelligence model that has become the most downloaded app in Apple's App Store.

"DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough, dubbed 'AI’s Sputnik moment' by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, could challenge the dominance of U.S. AI firms like OpenAI by offering competitive performance at a fraction of the cost," The Block's Brian McGleenon reports .

While blue chips like Nvidia (down 16%) are catching headlines, several stocks in the crypto sector are experiencing steeper losses.

Bitcoin miners Cipher Mining (CIFR), Core Scientific (CORZ) and Terawulf (WULF) are the biggest losers, with each stock trading down 30% at publication time. Other miners, such as Hut 8, IREN and Bitdeer, were down between 20 and 25%.

So, why are stocks like Core Scientific and Cipher Mining getting hit the hardest? Following Bitcoin's fourth halving last April, Bitcoin miners have increasingly diversified their operations, moving beyond pure crypto mining toward hosting infrastructure for AI and HPC (high-performance computing). Notably, CORZ signed a series of 12-year contracts with AI Hyperscaler CoreWeave.

"The blockchain and AI spaces are fundamentally different, with each driven by unique use cases and long-term innovation," Redstone COO Marcin Kazmierczak previously told The Block. "It’s only a matter of time before DeepSeek models start being leveraged in Crypto AI projects alongside the recently announced Operator - AI agent by OpenAI."

Elsewhere in the crypto sector, Coinbase was trading down 10%, while the largest corporate bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, was down about 8.5%. Earlier Monday, MicroStrategy announced it will offer 2.5 million shares of MSTR’s Series perpetual strike preferred stock to drive future bitcoin purchases.

The less-volatile spot Bitcoin ETFs were all trading lower by around 5-6% at publication time.

Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin pulled back to under $100,000, with over $850 million worth of crypto trades liquidated on exchanges over the past 24 hours. The GMCI 30 was down 7.6% to 189.92.