Bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz, the founder and chief executive of crypto management giant Galaxy Digital, is starting to describe the company less like a crypto trading house and more like a landlord sitting on scarce power.
The old pitch was exposure to Bitcoin. The new one is plainer. Secure land, lock in power, find an AI tenant and collect rent.
In an interview with Bloomberg published on Friday, July 10, Novogratz said Galaxy Digital's next act is built around the infrastructure that once powered its crypto mining business.
- At the center of that shift is Helios, Galaxy Digital's 160-acre campus in Texas.
- The company bought the site for $65 million in December 2022, when it was built for Bitcoin mining.
- Now, Galaxy Digital is turning it into a giant AI data-center campus.
From miner to landlord
Novogratz is not trying to outbuild Nvidia or guess the next AI model. His bet is on the bottleneck underneath it all.
Mike Novogratz
Founded in 2018, Galaxy Digital still runs trading, asset management, banking and crypto investment businesses. But the part investors seem to care about is the one with land, grid access and long-term AI demand, Bloomberg writes.
During the last crypto cycle, miners borrowed heavily to buy more Bitcoin mining machines that could collapse in value when economics turned. Novogratz told Bloomberg he sees similar risk in buying AI chips at the wrong time.
- So Galaxy Digital is leaving that risk to the tenant. CoreWeave, not Novogratz's crypto giant, is expected to equip the leased space with the expensive computing hardware.
The company may not stay together
The AI turn is also forcing a harder question about what Galaxy Digital is right now. As Novogratz told Bloomberg, the company "probably" will split its AI business into a separate entity, though he gave no timeline.
- The thing is that crypto businesses remain tied to Bitcoin prices, trading volumes and risk appetite.
- AI infrastructure firms, meanwhile, are being valued around scarce power and the rush to build data centers.
Galaxy Digital is trying to sit in both worlds for now. The company's next sites are likely to be in Texas, where the company already has staff, relationships and experience dealing with the state grid.