Bitcoin miners' existing infrastructure assets—land, substations, and power connections—provide competitive advantages in securing AI data center development, but regulatory restrictions are eroding this advantage.

"the maintainers keeping it running can't get into the vetted researcher programs the AI labs run...they lean on open-weight systems they can run themselves, which is useful, but a step behind the frontier—and the hackers attacking cryptocurrency networks."

"Many of these firms already control industrial land, large electricity allocations, energized substations and grid connections that can take years for new developers to secure...Existing access to land, substations and power would remain valuable, but control of a grid connection may no longer shield developers from the broader cost of serving a large campus."