From the Oil Era to the Computing Power Era: How BTC and AI Are Reshaping the Wealth Landscape

At the historical crossroads of energy flow transformation, Bitcoin serves as the new cornerstone of store-of-value consensus, while AI computing power represents the ultimate expression of productivity.

A Parallel Repetition of History

In 1859, the oil fields of Pennsylvania brought change. The first black liquid drilled by Colonel Drake ultimately reshaped two centuries of global power structures—old-world wealth was built on trade, while the new era’s wealth stems from energy control.

In 2025, we are experiencing a remarkably similar turning point. This time, what gushes out is not underground oil, but the computing power flowing within silicon chips; the new wealth is no longer carried by exchanges but by data centers spread across the globe.

Looking back over the past year, the market has undergone unexpected turbulence: global supply chain restructuring triggered inflation rebound, precious metal prices hit record highs, and the crypto market fluctuated amid policy favorable conditions and deleveraging shocks. Behind these fluctuations, a stronger force is brewing—the explosive growth in demand for computing power.

According to the latest data, the world’s leading cloud computing companies have invested nearly $300 billion in AI infrastructure. Notably, the construction of ultra-large-scale computing clusters is attracting attention: within less than half a year, the largest single AI data center has deployed over a million GPUs, indicating that the battle for computing power is entering a heated phase.

Four-Stage Evolution: Investment Logic of the Computing Power Industry

From the current market landscape, AI investment is advancing along a clear phased path. Industry research indicates this process includes four progressive stages: chip supply, infrastructure expansion, application revenue empowerment, and ultimately, productivity enhancement.

Currently, the industry is at the intersection of the second and third stages—infrastructure demand is exploding, and application deployment is accelerating.

Data confirms this judgment:

• Surge in power demand: by 2030, global data centers’ electricity consumption is expected to increase by 165%, with the US data center power share rising from 3% to 8%
• Scale of infrastructure investment: global cumulative expenditure on data centers and hardware is projected to reach $3 trillion (by 2028)
• Explosive application market: generative AI market size is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2032

All these point to the same conclusion: 2026 will be the year to validate AI investment returns. Companies that successfully convert computing power into actual profit growth will be the beneficiaries of a new wave of wealth concentration.

From Monopoly to Flow: Strategic Position of Cloud Service Providers

Under the “dual consensus” framework, companies that control both productivity and store-of-value assets become the most valuable entities. And cloud service providers happen to be at this intersection.

Monopoly of Computing Power by Ultra-Large-Scale Operators

Major global tech giants are undertaking unprecedented levels of computing power concentration:

Leading the infrastructure race are, but not limited to, deployments of million-GPU clusters in the US, and mega cloud platforms committing hundreds of billions in capital expenditure. They control the vast majority of high-quality computing resources on the market. These players achieve cost control through hardware R&D, self-developed chips, and other means, forming insurmountable competitive barriers.

Differentiated Breakthroughs by Emerging Specialized Cloud Service Providers

Meanwhile, a new wave of cloud service providers focusing on AI training and inference scenarios is emerging. Unlike general-purpose platforms, these specialized operators (NeoCloud) have core advantages such as:

• Flexible resource scheduling: tailored computing power allocation for AI-specific needs, with fast response and low latency
• High-end GPU reserves: priority access to the latest generation GPUs (H100, H200, Blackwell, etc.), pre-installed with liquid cooling, RDMA networks, and complete supporting infrastructure
• On-demand rapid delivery: flexible, daily-billed leasing models that reduce customer capital occupation

Another approach is distributed, democratized computing power solutions. Through cross-regional intelligent scheduling and multi-user management, deploying low-latency, high-cost-performance inference nodes in emerging markets addresses the “last mile” challenge of AI deployment. This mode is especially suitable for edge computing and regional applications.

The Energy Flow Cycle of BTC and AI

If AI computing power is the “new oil” of the digital intelligence era, then Bitcoin is the “new gold”—the ultimate underlying asset for value anchoring and credit settlement.

A Perfect Closed Loop in Energy Management

Currently, BTC price stands at $93.07K (with a circulating market cap of about $1.86 trillion). Despite short-term fluctuations (-2.27% in 24-hour price change), its long-term value support comes from a unique energy relationship:

• BTC mining essence: based on proof-of-work driven by electricity consumption, inherently linked to energy use
• AI computing power essence: transforming electricity into computational intelligence
• Synergistic effect: when electricity is abundant (e.g., during wind and solar peaks), BTC mining can absorb excess power; when electricity is scarce (AI peak computing), mining can shut down instantly to release capacity

This demand response mechanism makes BTC mining a “water reservoir” for grid balancing, rather than just an energy competitor—this is the key logic behind their long-term coexistence.

New Imagination of RWA and On-Chain Computing Market

The regulatory legislation passed in 2025 has opened the door for compliant stablecoins, accelerating the digitalization of the US dollar. This transformation creates infrastructure for on-chain assetization.

The Financialization Path of Computing Power

Due to its characteristics, AI computing power is gradually becoming a standardized on-chain asset:

• High investment, steady returns: clear heavy-asset nature, transparent revenue models
• Quantifiable mapping: parameters such as pricing, leasing periods, load rates, and energy efficiency can be digitized
• Automated settlement: smart contracts enable transparent profit sharing and real-time clearing

The Next-Generation “Computing Power Capital Market”

In the future, financial operations such as computing power leasing, transfer, and collateralization will migrate onto the chain, forming specialized markets similar to oil exchanges. This not only improves value circulation efficiency but also opens a new liquidity space for global capital.

Physical assets like edge inference nodes and data center loads will be verified on-chain (e.g., via PoW proofs) to become tradable, collateralizable standardized products—this is the core vision of the “on-chain computing power market”.

Strategic Extension: From Mining to AI

A noteworthy phenomenon is that top AI computing power service providers in the industry often have deep backgrounds in cryptomining.

This is not a crossover but a strategic reuse of core capabilities:

• BTC mining and high-performance AI computing are highly isomorphic at the fundamental logic level
• Both rely heavily on: large-scale cheap electricity, centralized deployment, 24/7 extreme operational management
• The experience accumulated in the mining industry—electricity channels and hardware management—has become the most scarce and valuable asset in the AI wave

The transition from “mining store-of-value assets” to “delivering productive computing power” is precisely where these pioneers hold strategic advantages. And as “bidirectional switching” technology matures, BTC will better balance energy distribution across time and space—this is a new mechanism of the digital intelligence era.

Outlook: Wealth Reshaping in a New Cycle

The parallelism of history lies in structure, not details. The oil discoverers of the past became the wealth centers of the industrial age; today, the dual consensus architects of computing power and BTC will become the reshapers of power in the digital intelligence era.

Cables extending to global data centers are building the arteries of the new economic era. Those who first invest in computing infrastructure, understand BTC’s store-of-value, and master on-chain financial tools will gain new influence in this transformation.

From oil to computing power, from gold to Bitcoin—this shift is not just about energy replacement but a reconstruction of the entire value consensus system. And we are standing at the starting point of this turning point.