SK Hynix has become a leading supplier of these chips, overtaking Samsung this month for the first time in 25 years to become South Korea’s most valuable listed company. Together, the companies supply most of the world’s HBM and have supply agreements with Nvidia and OpenAI.
Such spending is a headwind for cryptocurrencies, as it is the same capital cycle that has competed with digital assets for investor funds all year. The divergence suggests how investors view the two classes, even though cryptocurrencies fell through much of the month, including on days when AI chip stocks rallied.
Gabe Selby of CF Benchmarks said that with much of the new money and attention flowing into AI efforts, cryptocurrencies are competing for a smaller share of overall risk appetite.
This rotation is also appearing in places that previously supplied cryptocurrencies directly.
In recent weeks, when gold, silver, and Bitcoin sold off en masse as hedging trades unwinded, the cash from these hard assets went into AI stocks rather than Bitcoin.
Even Bitcoin miners are directing their computing power to AI hosting, with contract payments outweighing fluctuations in mining revenue.
South Korea’s $518 billion commitment is a decade-long bet that spending on AI infrastructure is structural rather than a fad. Cryptocurrencies have spent a year on the other side of the tide, but the open question now is whether the money chasing chip and AI listings will eventually bounce back or remain where it is.
