From bitcoin bull to ‘complete demolition’: Keel CEO bets on AI’s greater value

Quick Take

  • Fifteen months after being bullish on bitcoin, Keel CEO is overseeing the “complete demolition” of bitcoin mining facilities as the firm pursues greater value in artificial intelligence infrastructure.
  • The company, which officially rebranded from Bitfarms in April, has undertaken one of the sharpest strategic pivots among publicly traded bitcoin miners.
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Keel Infrastructure CEO Ben Gagnon was still calling the company’s bitcoin business "strong" and expressing confidence in its mining economics in May 2025.

Fifteen months later, he is overseeing the "complete demolition" of bitcoin mining facilities as Keel (KEEL) pursues greater value in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

"We've been working on winding down the bitcoin business for some time,” Gagnon said Tuesday morning during an interview with CNBC. "In our case, it’s a full rebuild across every facility. So it’s the complete demolition of the bitcoin mining facilities that were there and building a completely new building, a new data center."

Keel, which officially rebranded from Bitfarms in April, has undertaken one of the sharpest strategic pivots among publicly traded bitcoin miners, a group that includes MARA, Hut 8, and CleanSpark. Its shares fell more than 11% on Monday after the company reported that quarterly revenue from continuing operations had fallen 50% year over year to $30 million.

BTC wind down

Keel also said it sold 1,085 BTC for $75 million between April 1 and Aug. 7 as part of its previously announced wind-down of its bitcoin position, leaving the company with 1,861 BTC on its balance sheet.

In May 2025, Gagnon described what was then-Bitfarms' bitcoin business as “strong” and said the company remained “bullish on mining economics with our newly upgraded mining fleet.” Even then, however, the company was beginning to prioritize AI infrastructure, saying it would direct capital toward developing its U.S. energy and HPC portfolio rather than purchasing more mining equipment.

Since then, declining bitcoin prices and surging demand for AI compute have accelerated that transition. Bitcoin (BTC) climbed above $110,000 in May 2025, compared with its current level of around $64,000.

"Bitcoin miners spent years building up these huge energy portfolios, thinking that the best way to monetize those assets was going to be with bitcoin," Gagnon also said Tuesday. "And then when the HPC wave really started taking off in 2024, everyone realized quite quickly that there was a much bigger opportunity at the table and a much greater value to be had by converting those assets off into HPC and AI."


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