FTX's Bitcoin Mining Alibi Gets Rebranded Into an AI Side Hustle 🥁

SWI Group has raised €800 million ($895 million) from institutional investors at a €6.1 billion valuation, channeling the fresh capital into AI and data-center expansion built around the former FTX-linked Bitcoin miner Genesis Digital Assets. The Singapore-incorporated, Amsterdam-listed company plans to market Genesis Digital facilities in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Sweden to hyperscale cloud providers, pivoting mining infrastructure toward AI and high-performance computing workloads.

The funding round follows SWI's June 15 acquisition of approximately 38.3% of Genesis Digital's shares for $500 million, a deal that also included 77.2% of the $1.124 billion liquidation preference on Genesis Digital's preferred stock. SWI has since moved to majority ownership, reporting a 70% stake in Genesis as of August, and has rebranded the mining venture to SWI Digital.

Genesis Digital operates 15 facilities with more than 1.3 gigawatts of energized and approved grid connections. Combined with SWI's European platform AiOnX, the group says it now controls more than 3.6 GW of capacity. Co-founder and CEO Max-Hervé George stated that all legal disputes related to FTX's stake in Genesis have been resolved.

Genesis Digital originated as a Bitcoin mining venture backed by FTX; former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly directed sister firm Alameda Research to spend more than $1 billion acquiring a 20% stake in Genesis between 2021 and 2022. FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, triggering criminal charges against executives over the misuse of customer funds as debtors sought to claw back assets, and the mining operation was among the holdings caught up in those proceedings. SWI is now repositioning the infrastructure for AI demand, betting that grid access at each site carries more value than $BTC mining economics alone.