A quiet but structural shift emerged in 2025. The companies that manufacture ASICs are now energizing more hashrate than many traditional operators. With ASIC hardware demand softening, surplus inventory, and inflexible wafer commitments, hardware makers have increasingly turned to self-mining as the fastest way to monetize production capacity.
From ASIC Factories to Mining farms
How Bitdeer Became the 5th Biggest Miner in the World
Canaan is Now a Global Self-Mining Operator
Bitmain’s Hidden Network of Mining Power
Four Reasons Why the Pivot to Self-Mining is Likely Structural
What this means for the mining industry
From ASIC Factories to Mining farms
2025 has revealed an acceleration of a significant transformation. The manufacturers of ASIC rigs are no longer just vendors selling to miners, but are themselves operating large-scale mining fleets.
Faced with a slowdown in demand for new rigs, overhang of inventory, and long-term wafer and chip production commitments, companies have started redirecting newly built machines into their own mining operations. The result is that some of the largest hashrate providers today are the very firms that supply the hardware, blurring the traditional boundaries between “manufacturer” and “miner.”
This shift is most clearly embodied by Bitdeer and echoed by Canaan. Others, such as Bitmain, have been deploying large volumes of equipment globally, but reliable data on their proprietary hashing power remains limited, unlike Bitdeer and Canaan, they do not face the same public reporting obligations.
How Bitdeer Became the 5th Biggest Miner in the World
Bitdeer offers the most concrete example of the new paradigm. In mid-2025, the company began an aggressive ramp-up of its proprietary mining operations. In June, it reported a self-mining hash rate of 16.5 EH/s. By July it had surged to 22.3 EH/s. In August, the pace continued: Bitdeer disclosed 30.0 EH/s self-mining capacity. Finally, by end-October 2025 Bitdeer claimed 41.2 EH/s of self-mining.
This level effectively quintuples the company’s self-mining capacity compared to early 2025, putting Bitdeer among the world’s largest miners. Management even flagged deployment of SEALMINER rigs initially destined for external customers: “hardware that was partly planned to be shipped to clients is now powering Bitdeer’s own balance sheet.”
The financials reflect that shift. In Q3 2025 Bitdeer reported $169.7 million in revenue, a 173% year-over-year jump driven largely by self-mining output. Bitdeer also noted that hosting and cloud-mining contracts declined or were reallocated in favour of self-mining, suggesting a strategic reorientation of its whole mining business toward in-house hashpower.
Behind the scenes, Bitdeer continues to invest in new hardware. The mass production of SEALMINER A3 rigs is underway, and the company is working toward a next-gen SEAL04 chip, targeting ~5 J/TH at the chip level. Bitdeer has pivoted from selling rigs to third-party miners toward building one of the world’s largest self-mining platforms.
Canaan is Now a Global Self-Mining Operator
Bitdeer may be the poster child of the manufacturer-to-miner shift, but Canaan’s 2025 performance demonstrates that the trend extends well beyond a single company. Founded in 2013 and best known for its Avalon-branded ASICs, Canaan has evolved from a pure hardware vendor into a more diversified operator with a meaningful and rapidly expanding self-mining footprint. Headquartered in Singapore, with deep roots in China’s semiconductor ecosystem, the company is increasingly leveraging its own machines to capture block rewards directly.
Public disclosures throughout 2025 show a steady, deliberate march upward. By August, Canaan had deployed approximately 8.6 EH/s, of which 7.5 EH/s was actively operating. By September, deployed capacity rose to 9.30 EH/s, with 7.84 EH/s online. In October, operational hashrate increased again to roughly 8.25 EH/s, supported by 9.31 EH/s deployed. Clear evidence of ongoing expansion and site build-outs across multiple regions, including the United States and Ethiopia.
This operational scale is reinforced by Canaan’s broader strategy. The company recently exited its underperforming AI-chip division to refocus on Bitcoin mining and ASIC production, signalling a renewed commitment to its core strengths. Once pending ASIC deliveries are fully installed, the company expects its self-mining fleet to reach 10.31 EH/s, underscoring a continued shift toward operational participation in the mining value chain.
Although Canaan’s fleet remains smaller than Bitdeer’s massive self-mining expansion, the trajectory is clear. Canaan is no longer merely selling machines, it is steadily transforming into a vertically integrated miner that deploys its own hardware at scale. This dual role positions the company to capture both hardware margins and mining yield, while reinforcing the broader industry trend of ASIC manufacturers increasingly operating substantial hashrate themselves.
Bitmain’s Hidden Network of Mining Power
While Bitdeer and Canaan publicly disclose their expanding self-mining fleets, Bitmain’s mining footprint remains far more difficult to trace. 2025 brought one of the clearest signals to date that the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer is not merely supplying miners but developing a mining empire through affiliated entities.
Reporting from TheMinerMag revealed that Cango, a relatively unknown Hong Kong–listed company, suddenly surpassed 50 EH/s of installed capacity after a deal that added 18 EH/s of on-rack machines. According to the reporting, this entire tranche came from Bitmain-affiliated entities and was transferred through Antalpha, effectively turning Cango into a public-facing proxy for Bitmain’s mining footprint. In practice, Bitmain is able to surface privately operated hashrate through a listed miner without revealing its own proprietary fleet.
Independent analyses on BitcoinMiningStock.io reinforce this interpretation. They point to a fleet expansion far out of proportion with Cango’s previous capital base and repeated involvement of Bitmain-linked entities. Their research argues that Cango’s explosive growth is difficult to explain unless it is acting as an operational or accounting extension of Bitmain’s mining business.
A similar pattern emerges when looking at BitFuFu, another Bitmain-backed entity operating tens of exahash across global hosting sites. Public filings show that BitFuFu manages more than 35 EH/s, including a self-owned fleet of roughly 5 EH/s, yet the company’s rapid growth is closely tied to long-term supply and hosting agreements with Bitmain. Much like Cango, BitFuFu seems to function as a vehicle through which Bitmain can deploy hardware, scale operational hashrate, and monetize infrastructure without disclosing a proprietary fleet directly. Taken together, the Cango and BitFuFu cases suggest that Bitmain’s mining influence is far larger than what appears in any single company’s disclosures.
Later in the year, TheMinerMag added another layer to this evolving picture. Two Hong Kong–listed firms — DL Holdings and International Business Settlement (IBS) — collectively agreed to purchase nearly 1.7 EH/s of Bitmain’s S21 Hydro-series rigs as North American demand softened. DL Holdings, a $700 million family office, purchased 2,200 S21XP Hydros totaling 1.04 EH/s and structured the payment through convertible bonds and shares, with a director of both Antalpha and Antpool listed as the counterparty, further tying the transaction into Bitmain’s financing ecosystem. IBS, an $800 million property developer pivoting into “supercomputing,” negotiated a separate deal for 1,863 S21 Hydros (660 PH/s), settling the purchase with a Bitcoin pledge redeemable after 12 months and hosting the rigs at Bitmain-linked sites in the U.S. and Paraguay.
Together, the Cango transfer, the BitFuFu structure, and the new Hong Kong acquisitions indicate that Bitmain is orchestrating a complex ecosystem of affiliates, financiers, and strategically positioned buyers to ensure its hardware is energized, whether under its own umbrella, through proxies like Cango and BitFuFu, or via capital-hungry public companies seeking exposure.
Four Reasons Why the Pivot to Self-Mining is Likely Structural
Why are ASIC manufacturers turning into miners? Several forces appear to be at work concurrently. An important driver is the softening demand for mining hardware. As mining returns have compressed, many traditional miners have reduced orders for new machines. Others have stopped mining expansion overall as they switched focus on the more lucrative AI/HPC business line. This reduces the market for new rigs, leaving manufacturers with excess inventory or unsold production capacity.
The fixed wafer and chip-fabrication commitments also play an important role. ASIC makers have long-term contracts with foundries. Even if demand from miners softens, those wafer commitments, often prepaid or at least scheduled, still need to be fulfilled. Building rigs and deploying them themselves becomes a way to honour those commitments without relying on outside buyers.
Want to dive deeper into the remaining reasons behind the structural shift toward self-mining — and understand what this means for miner competitiveness, network hashrate growth, and decentralization? Upgrade today to continue reading.
