CoreWeave's Claude Comeback: Former Crypto Miner Now Powers 9 of 10 Top AI Models

CoreWeave just landed a multi-year deal with Anthropic, becoming the cloud backbone for Claude AI model workloads. The agreement rolls out in phases with room to expand. Basically, the former GPU farmer is now running the show for one of the hottest AI startups on the planet — not bad for a company that started by hashing instead of inference.

This win means CoreWeave now serves nine of the ten major large language model developers in AI — not bad for a company that used to mine crypto. The irony is almost too thick to mine. One minute they're chasing hashrate and electricity rebates, the next they're hosting the brains behind "harmless" AI assistants. Talk about an upgrade from ASICs to something that actually pays the bills.

The market loved it. CoreWeave shares popped more than 12% on Friday, trading at $102.73 at time of writing. Nothing says "we believe in your pivot" like double-digit gains on a Friday. Traders were apparently very excited to watch a former crypto mining operation become the cool kid at the AI infrastructure party.

The Anthropic deal follows CoreWeave's recent $8.5 billion capital raise, led by Meta. That financing was collateralized against the company's deployed computing capacity and its predictable cash flows — a far cry from traditional crypto mining financing that relied on GPU hardware. Translation: instead of HODLing volatile hash rate, they're now backed by actual revenue streams from people who need compute more than they need meme coins. How the mighty have transitioned.

CoreWeave made the pivot from crypto mining to AI infrastructure back in 2019, when the mining sector was bleeding after the 2018 crypto market downturn. While the rest of us were crying into our ASICs, someone at CoreWeave apparently had a vision that went beyond chasing block rewards. Bold move, cotton.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin miners are still feeling the pain. Up to 20% of BTC miners are unprofitable right now, according to CoinShares. Rising energy costs, shrinking block rewards, and declining crypto prices have many considering repurposing their rigs for AI processing. As market analyst Ran Neuner put it: both industries compete for electricity, and AI is willing to pay way more for it. The writing's on the wall — when AI offers better returns than the orange coin, even miners start looking at new pastures. The great migration is just beginning.