Bitcoin Miners Just Found a Way to 10x Their Business

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  August 11, 2026 at 18:45  |  39:10  |  Milk Road Macro
Speakers
Matthew Sigel — Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck

Summary

Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, explains how Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI infrastructure, capturing a 10x higher value from electricity. He details VanEck's framework for valuing miners as data center assets and reveals that the actively managed Onchain Economy ETF (NODE) has recently concentrated into high-conviction miner and energy names after forced selling. Sigel remains bullish on Bitcoin with bottoming indicators at current prices and holds small positions in ETH, SOL, and ZEC for specific catalysts.

  • Bitcoin miners are arbitraging electricity by serving AI data centers, which yield 10x more value per unit of power than Bitcoin mining.
  • VanEck's NODE ETF shifted from diversified to concentrated miner and infrastructure bets during forced selling, and now trades for cheap valuations.
  • Galaxy Digital's Helios data center is a valuable but concentrated asset; the stock still looks cheap despite tenant and concentration risks.
  • Bitcoin is the largest position; 60k is a good entry with bottoming signs and a coiled-spring volatility setup ahead.
  • Small ETH and SOL positions are held in case a US regulatory catalyst (Clarity Act) triggers a Layer-1 rally in September.
  • Zcash is held for its early pivot to become future-proof against AI threats.
  • Altcoins and DATs are avoided because capital formation is moving toward public equities and regulated entities.
Ideas
Matthew Sigel Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck 15:02
Helios data center makes it cheap.
Galaxy Digital has an attractive asset in the Texas Helios data center, which is already partially leased to CoreWeave and has the option to lease additional power, even with the recent Texas data center moratorium. The stock looks very cheap with great optionality, but the initial tenant was not investment grade and the asset is geographically concentrated, making a spin-off difficult.
GLXY MED
Matthew Sigel Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck 17:07
ETF concentrated on AI miner pivot.
The VanEck Onchain Economy ETF (NODE) has been re-positioned to concentrate into high-conviction Bitcoin miners and energy infrastructure names after the recent forced selling. The manager sold lower-volatility peripheral stocks and doubled down into favorite names that own powered land, which are cheap on existing lease values alone, with the pipeline and terminal value now given away for free. The fund aims to capture the arbitrage where AI compute generates 10x more value from electricity than Bitcoin mining, and miners can finance GPU buildouts with debt, lowering their cost of capital.
NODE HIGH
Matthew Sigel Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck 33:16
Add Bitcoin, 60k entry looks good.
Bitcoin is his largest position at 11%. He added on the forced-selling dip. Bottoming indicators are accumulating: seller exhaustion, ETF closures, volatility at all-time lows, and a tight gap between the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. A 60k entry price will likely look very good in a year, though he is waiting for price to move up on good news with volume before going all in.
BTC HIGH
Matthew Sigel Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck 36:21
ETH may rally on regulatory news.
He still holds a little Ethereum because the odds of the Clarity Act passing are low, so any positive regulatory surprise in September could trigger a decent rally for Layer 1 tokens. Additionally, Ethereum governance changes earlier this year are positive.
ETH LOW
Matthew Sigel Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck 36:21
SOL may rally on regulatory news.
He holds a small Solana position for the same reason as Ethereum: a possible regulatory catalyst from the Clarity Act in September could spark a Layer-1 rally, though follow-through is uncertain.
SOL LOW
Matthew Sigel Head of Digital Asset Research, VanEck 36:50
ZEC future-proof against AI threat.
Zcash has interesting leadership and was the first project to face an existential threat from AI. It reacted earliest to make itself future-proof against AI software, which makes it appealing.
ZEC MED
Up Next
2:34
Riot signs $9.1 billion Anthropic deal
CNBC · Aug 11
4:16
Robinhood Sees More Flows Into Bitcoin ETFs
Bloomberg Markets · Aug 11
4:17
eToro CEO: Customers are using AI agents to trade 24/7 in their accounts
CNBC · Aug 11
4:32
GXO CEO Patrick Kelleher: Data centers are a big business, and they’re growing for us
CNBC · Aug 11
4:37
Bessemer’s Deeter on Nvidia's $500 billion Wall Street deal: ‘A great maturation of the ecosystem’
CNBC · Aug 11

This Milk Road Macro video, published August 11, 2026, features Matthew Sigel discussing GLXY, NODE, BTC, ETH, SOL, ZEC. 6 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Matthew Sigel  · Tickers: GLXY, NODE, BTC, ETH, SOL, ZEC