Gomining’s Kirill Solovev Says Bitcoin Mining Trades at a Discount, Urges New Payment Rails
As Bitcoin miners are increasingly monetizing their power allocations and cooling infrastructure for artificial intelligence, Gomining founder Kirill Solovev argues that pure-play infrastructure remains severely undervalued.
Key Takeaways
- Public bitcoin miners signed tens of billions in AI data center deals following profit drops after the 2024 halving.
- Network computing power dropped periodically after hitting an all-time high above 1,100 exahashes per second.
- Gomining chairman Kirill Solovev expects large corporations to scale Layer-1 retail payments via GoBTC protocol.
The AI Pivot and Network Resilience
The migration of public Bitcoin miners toward high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure has shifted from a minor diversification tactic to a massive industry trend. Driven by squeezed profit margins and soaring AI data center demand, publicly traded miners have signed tens of billions of dollars in GPU cloud-hosting deals.
Crucially, miners are not using specialized Bitcoin mining chips (ASICs) to run AI. Instead, they are capitalizing on their most valuable assets: secured power allocations, electrical grids, and cooling infrastructure that tech companies would otherwise wait three to five years to build.
Consequently, the computing power securing the Bitcoin network has experienced a noticeable cooling. After peaking above 1,100 exahashes per second, the network has seen periodic drops in collective computing power and consecutive downward difficulty adjustments. Still, bitcoin works as designed. If half the world’s miners left for AI tomorrow, the network would simply adjust its math, maintain its 10-minute block times and remain secure.
Nevertheless, this shift toward AI demands introspection from miners committed to the network’s original goals. While tech conglomerates dangle lucrative contracts, some industry leaders argue that pure-play crypto infrastructure is severely undervalued.
Kirill Solovev, founder and chairman of Gomining, views the market disparity as an accumulation opportunity.
“Look at the scale: Bitcoin’s market capitalization today is smaller than the capitalization of Nvidia alone,” Solovev said. “This suggests that both Bitcoin and, all the more so, mining are undervalued relative to the role they can play — though I present this as a thesis, not a guarantee.”
Instead of pivoting to AI, Solovev suggests miners refocus on network evolution, noting that mining infrastructure fundamentally facilitates decentralized payments. Without miners to determine block composition, bitcoin transactions cannot exist.
“If Bitcoin develops as a means of payment, facilitating those payments turns into a full-fledged business, not just mining,” Solovev said, noting that mining currently trades at a steep discount to the asset itself. “If the transition to a payment function takes place, this gap will logically narrow. Miners should not wind down but keep building infrastructure and learning to service the payment flow — that’s exactly where the new economy appears, beyond the block subsidy.”
Geopolitical Shifts and Corporate Data Centers
As the network shifts toward relying on transaction fees rather than block subsidies, mining’s geographic makeup is transforming. Mining has concentrated heavily within the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates. Following its 2021 mining ban, China lost dominance it will struggle to regain, leaving North America with a distinct infrastructure advantage.
As bitcoin matures into money, block space becomes a strategic resource. “The logical next stage is when large corporations begin building their own data centers, including to ensure their own payment flow,” Solovev said, noting that overall computing demand is accelerating these dynamics.
This long-term shift represents more than a structural transition; it points toward a potential realignment of global economics. Solovev cautions that history often defies optimistic projections, recalling that many believed international tribunals before World War I meant humanity had outgrown large-scale warfare.
“I keep that lesson in mind — which is why I try to speak cautiously: not ‘this is how it will be,’ but ‘such a scenario is possible,’” Solovev explained.
However, he suggests modern advancements could alter historical patterns.
“It seems to me that technology, and above all AI, is capable of gradually shifting the balance from a logic of confrontation to a logic of economic interaction and competition,” Solovev said. “If this happens, a neutral monetary layer like Bitcoin will turn out to be a natural part of such a world. But I present this precisely as a possibility we believe in and build for, not as a predetermined outcome.”
To advance this layout, Solovev told Bitcoin.com News that Gomining has rolled out a protocol allowing users to pay with real bitcoin. Unlike the Lightning Network, it neither wraps bitcoin into external structures nor routes it through third-party nodes.
Gomining’s GoBTC protocol features a 0.2% merchant fee, instant retail approval, and final on-chain settlement within 12 hours. The architecture relies on a 2-of-3 multi-signature scheme split between the user, Gomining, and a regulated recovery custodian. While this moves away from pure single-key self-custody, Solovev defends the setup as a necessary retail compromise.
“Our solution is non-custodial, but it’s a deliberate engineering compromise,” Solovev said. “To make transactions instant and cheap, we really do need one key out of three as a co-signer.”
Gomining accesses the funds only when a transaction enters the mempool. Because any two signatures can authorize a transfer, the firm cannot spend funds single-handedly, and users can always withdraw assets independently.
“I won’t claim this is equivalent to pure single-key self-custody — it isn’t,” Solovev said. “But ‘non-custodial’ here means exactly what it should mean: neither we nor anyone else can dispose of your satoshis without you. It’s a compromise for the sake of speed and convenience on Layer-1, and I consider it justified for retail payments.”
Beyond speed, keeping transactions entirely on-chain yields specific privacy benefits by decoupling the moment of payment from the moment of execution in the mempool. This protects users with large balances from deanonymization.
“Any notable step forward draws criticism, and that’s normal,” Solovev said. “But I prefer to describe our compromise honestly rather than oversell it.”
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