CoreWeave, an AI cloud service provider that transitioned from Ethereum PoW mining, has its "crypto background" deeply integrated with NVIDIA's computing power ecosystem. This not only restructures the global computing power flow logic but also builds a solid bridge between the AI and crypto industries.
Article by Winnie
Article source: CryptoPulse
In January 2026, Nvidia announced a $2 billion strategic investment in CoreWeave's Class A common stock. While ostensibly a major move in the AI computing power field, this transaction is actually a milestone in the leap from the crypto computing power industry to the AI domain. CoreWeave, an AI cloud service provider that transitioned from Ethereum PoW mining, has a deeply intertwined "crypto background" with Nvidia's computing power ecosystem. This not only restructures the global flow of computing power but also builds a solid bridge between the AI and crypto industries.
I. AI Leap and Industrial Extension of Encrypted Computing Power
The core target of this investment is CoreWeave's Class A common stock, which was traded at $87.20 per share, representing a discount of approximately 6.2% to the previous trading day's closing price. Nvidia's goal is clear: to help CoreWeave build over 5 gigawatts (5 GW) of AI computing infrastructure by 2030, what the industry calls an "AI factory."
This scale is equivalent to nearly one-third of the current global AI computing power, enough to support the computing power needs of leading AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic for the next five years. It's worth noting that the two companies had previously signed a long-term agreement, with Nvidia committing to purchasing over $6 billion worth of computing power services from CoreWeave by 2032. This equity investment is a continuation of this "equity + business" dual binding, further locking in the supply and demand of computing power.
CoreWeave's "crypto background" is key to understanding all of this. It originated as a leading GPU mining company during the Ethereum PoW era, accumulating core capabilities in large-scale GPU clusters, power infrastructure, and low-cost computing power operation and maintenance. After Ethereum transitioned to PoS in 2022, mining revenue plummeted, and CoreWeave quickly shifted its computing power to AI services. Its underlying business model of "GPU leasing + computing power monetization" is entirely derived from that of crypto mining companies.
For the crypto space, the impact of this deal goes far beyond what is apparent. First, it has accelerated the transformation of crypto mining companies worldwide. CoreWeave's success has provided a clear model for reusing tens of thousands of idle GPUs globally, and it is being emulated by leading mining companies such as Hut 8 and Iris Energy.
This "dual-track computing power system" allows the same GPU cluster to dynamically switch service scenarios according to market demand, reducing reliance on crypto mining and minimizing computing power fluctuations in the crypto market, thus significantly improving computing power utilization. Secondly, computing power tokens are poised for long-term benefits; crypto tokens such as RNDR, Akash Network, and FET, which rely on GPU computing power, directly benefit from the expansion of global AI computing power infrastructure.
The more profound impact lies in the fact that this transaction has opened up a channel for the flow from "cryptographic computing power" to "AI computing power" and then to "on-chain AI applications," giving rise to a completely new industrial ecosystem. CoreWeave's computing power network has already been used in scenarios such as AI-generated NFTs and on-chain AI model inference, and will also support innovative applications such as AI-driven DeFi strategies and decentralized AI services in the future.
II. Capital Linkage and Potential Risks
The ripple effect at the capital level is equally significant. CoreWeave's IPO and Nvidia's investment have made "mining companies transforming into AI" a hot narrative in the capital market, driving up the stock prices of crypto mining companies such as Hut 8 and Iris Energy, and also attracting traditional institutional funds to flow into crypto computing power assets.
This capital linkage further drives the transformation of mining companies, accelerates the migration of crypto computing power to AI computing power, and forms a positive cycle from "crypto computing power" to "AI computing power" and then to "on-chain AI applications." At the same time, this trend has also restructured the value anchor of crypto computing power: in the past, the value of crypto computing power was determined solely by mining revenue, but now it has a "second valuation anchor" of AI computing power, and the stock prices and token prices of related targets have seen valuation repair.
Of course, this process also comes with potential risks. In the short term, the large-scale shift of GPU computing power to AI may lead to insufficient computing power supply for niche GPU-mined cryptocurrencies, resulting in increased mining difficulty and decreased returns. In the long term, CoreWeave, as a publicly traded company, must strictly comply with the regulatory requirements of agencies such as the U.S. SEC, which will force other mining companies undergoing transformation to strengthen compliance and may also affect the operational flexibility of decentralized computing networks.
Conclusion
Nvidia's $2 billion investment in CoreWeave is not only a strategic move in the field of AI computing power, but also a landmark event marking the leap of the encrypted computing power industry towards the AI field. It opens up the channel for the flow of computing power between encryption and AI, reconstructs the value logic of encrypted computing power, provides transformation opportunities for traditional mining companies, and lays the foundation for the explosion of the AI+Web3 ecosystem.
With the accelerated construction of global computing infrastructure, we are ushering in a new era where computing power dominates AI and encryption, and the profound impact of this industrial revolution is only just beginning to emerge.
