Why can't tech tycoons escape the "gravitational pull of the cryptocurrency circle"?

As the "Chinese version of NVIDIA," Moore Threads' market value soared after it went public on the STAR Market on December 5th. Although there was a brief adjustment, the enthusiasm remained high. As of the close on December 12th, Moore Threads' market value reached 383 billion yuan, and its stock price multiplied by six times compared to the issue price, creating a huge wave of wealth creation.

Interestingly, when AI and computing power stand at the forefront of capital trends, the ambiguous relationship between tech tycoons and virtual currencies has once again come under the spotlight.

Overseas, from Elon Musk and Sam Altman to Jensen Huang, these pioneers at the forefront of the technological wave have frequently been entangled with virtual currencies. Now, the highly - sought - after Moore Threads in China also has a similar "quantum entanglement."

Li Feng, who claims to be a co - founder of Moore Threads and the person in charge of the online course Moore Academy, was exposed to have had a property dispute with others due to "cryptocurrency speculation." Relevant people complained on social media that he had failed in blockchain investment using Bitcoin, and because of the nature of virtual assets, it was difficult to hold him accountable, and the money has not been returned to date.

Li Feng's name does not appear among the core management listed in Moore Threads' prospectus, but the official website features an interview with Li Feng that was just launched recently.

This seemingly non - existent connection is like a metaphor. There is always an elusive capital link between computing power, AI, and virtual currencies.

01

The "Love - Hate Relationship" between Tech Tycoons and the Cryptocurrency Circle

Many tech tycoons have experienced the ups and downs of the cryptocurrency circle. As the leaders of well - known enterprises in the field of artificial intelligence, Elon Musk and Sam Altman have a more positive attitude towards virtual currencies. And their motives go far beyond simple investment gains.

Elon Musk used to keep his distance from virtual currencies, but later he "manipulated" virtual currency investors with his influence.

Before 2019, Musk mainly joked about virtual currencies. The turning point occurred on April Fool's Day that year when some fans elected Musk as the "CEO of Dogecoin," while the real founder of Dogecoin had stopped participating in the project due to rampant market speculation.

Since then, with his global influence, Musk has become the de facto "chief promoter" of Dogecoin. One of his tweets can trigger significant market fluctuations.

Every time Musk praised Dogecoin and belittled Bitcoin, the value of Dogecoin would rise. In May 2021, when he admitted on a variety show that Dogecoin was a "scam," Dogecoin plummeted by 30%.

He also performed the classic operation of "talking down - holding" on Bitcoin.

In February 2021, Tesla publicly bought a total of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. Three months later, it suspended Bitcoin payments on the grounds that "mining is not environmentally friendly," causing the price of Bitcoin to drop. However, Tesla still holds a large position in Bitcoin. As of October 2025, it holds 11,509 Bitcoins, worth over $1 billion.

Musk's actions reveal a dual strategy: using personal influence to profit from market fluctuations while including cryptocurrencies in the company's balance sheet for long - term bets.

Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, seems to have other motives and regards the issuance of virtual currencies as a "social experiment."

In May 2023, the Web3 cryptocurrency project WorldCoin, in which Altman participated, was launched. Altman believes that in addition to creating a new type of virtual currency, WorldCoin also involves distinguishing humans from artificial intelligence in the future.

This project offers people free cryptocurrency in exchange for iris scans. The iris scan ensures that each person can only have one WorldCoin ID. Altman claims that his cryptocurrency is a type of currency that can be equally distributed to everyone in the world.

Elon Musk squanders his influence in the cryptocurrency circle, Sam Altman uses virtual currencies to create a "utopia," and Jensen Huang maintains an ambiguous business relationship with virtual currencies, content to "sell shovels."

His NVIDIA is a reliable hardware manufacturer of GPUs, which are tools for mining (producing virtual currencies). During the two mining booms from 2016 - 2018 and 2020 - 2022, NVIDIA even launched P104 and P106, which had no display interfaces and were only used for mining. In 2021, it launched the CMP series without display functions, clearly distinguishing mining cards from graphics cards.

However, NVIDIA's relationship with mining is limited to simple sales transactions, and the company has never publicly participated in "mining." The US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have accused NVIDIA of deliberately downplaying the impact of the mining boom on the growth of its sales revenue, misleading investors into attributing the revenue growth to game demand.

Jensen Huang once said, "Mining is just one of the demands for GPUs."

Interestingly, in October 2025, at the same time as NVIDIA's technology conference, a live - stream of an AI - generated "Jensen Huang" blatantly promoted a so - called "cryptocurrency popularization plan" scam. The number of online viewers reached up to 95,000 at one point, far more than the real official live - stream at the same time.

It is unknown whether Jensen Huang felt "slapped in the face" because of this, but there is no doubt that investors obsessed with virtual currencies need NVIDIA's computing power, and sometimes computing power also needs the cryptocurrency circle.

02

AI, Virtual Currencies, Computing Power, and Electricity

Both virtual currencies and artificial intelligence, which rely on computing power, are driven by the same adventurous spirit of subverting existing rules. The high degree of isomorphism between artificial intelligence and virtual currencies in terms of hardware, energy, and other infrastructure allows capital and entrepreneurs to flow across the boundaries of the two.

In a sense, both Musk and Altman have demonstrated the concern of tech entrepreneurs for decentralization and efficiency improvement.

These tycoons also show a love for adventure and a proactive attitude in exerting influence in fields other than virtual currencies. They naturally prefer high - risk, high - return investment fields: In 2008, when Elon Musk was facing difficulties with the production of Tesla's Roadster electric sports car and the third failure of SpaceX's launch, with only $30 million left in his account, he still split all his funds equally between the two projects; Sam Altman even said, "I'm ready to invest all the money I've earned from YC and OpenAI in nuclear fusion and brain - computer interfaces."

In practical terms, computing power means power. Whether it is training large models or conducting cryptocurrency mining, one of the cores is to compete for computing power.

Semiconductor company Canaan Creative Technology initially focused on producing mining machine chips as its main business. Then in 2016, it started researching and developing AI chips but always retained its self - operated mining business. Later, due to the considerable mining profits, it stopped the development of AI chips this year and focused on mining. In May 2025, Canaan Creative Technology mined a total of 109 Bitcoins, a record high for the company.

Although NVIDIA insists that it does not participate in mining, its GPUs are always in high demand during mining booms, and the market continues to suspect that it may secretly mine using idle production capacity.

In fact, both artificial intelligence and mining are essentially energy - intensive industries that require a large amount of computing power and electricity.

Considering that the current market situation of the general AI track is much better than that of virtual currencies, more mining enterprises across the ocean have transformed into computing power providers. The reasons are not only related to the rate of return but also to the power supply.

In recent years, well - known mining enterprises in the cryptocurrency circle such as CoreWeave, TeraWulf, and IREN have used their infrastructure to provide computing power services. The reason is naturally that being a computing power service provider is more profitable and has more imagination space in the capital market, and the value of Bitcoin is no longer growing rapidly. The US stock market also gives different price - to - earnings multiples to computing power enterprises and pure mining enterprises.

At the same time, the local shortage of electric energy in the US infrastructure makes it difficult for external enterprises to obtain approval to use a large amount of electricity, which gives Bitcoin mines with existing energy approvals a ready - made opportunity for transformation.

It usually takes 2 to 4 years for a newly built AI data center in the United States to obtain power approval, while Bitcoin mining enterprises locked in grid - connection permits and long - term low - cost power contracts during the previous bull market. A report by Morgan Stanley in November 2025 pointed out that mining enterprises have approved grid connections and large - scale power supply capabilities, which can bypass the time - consuming approval process. For AI companies eager to deploy computing power, this is the option with the lowest execution risk.

A computing power center can be said to be a bottomless pit for consuming electric energy. According to the "Electricity 2024" report released by the International Energy Agency, the global electricity consumption for computing power will exceed Japan's annual electricity consumption in 2026, and after 2035, it will increase by at least the annual electricity consumption of Japan every year. Therefore, some industry insiders say that "behind the bits is the watts."

Different from the "mine transformation" path under the energy constraints in the United States, the development of computing power in China is more guided by policies and overall planning. The official has continuously regulated mining activities, emphasizing that computing power construction should serve the real economy and focus on actual benefits.

Gong Ke, the executive dean of the Institute for the Development Strategy of New - Generation Artificial Intelligence in China, said at the Caixin Summit that the expansion of computing power should be based on the actual economic benefits generated by developing computing power rather than blind expansion.

This makes the domestic computing power track more focused on technological breakthroughs and compliant applications, forming a different development logic from the US market.

03

After the Frenzy in the Computing Power Track

However, whether on the other side of the ocean or this side, computing power is always in high demand, as evidenced by market values.

NVIDIA's market value once exceeded $5 trillion this year, making it the world's first listed company to reach this valuation, clearly demonstrating the influence behind computing power.

In China, as soon as Moore Threads went public, its market value surpassed 99% of listed companies. On the same day that Moore Threads went public, Muxi Co., Ltd., which is in the same track, started its subscription and will soon be listed on the STAR Market. Many industry insiders believe that Muxi will replicate the myth of Moore Threads' sky - rocketing stock price after listing.

And Cambricon Technologies, a domestic semiconductor giant, is one of the companies with the highest market value in the A - share market. Behind this is the triple drive of the general AI investment boom, the narrative of domestic substitution, and national strategic needs.

At the same time, as a tool for improving efficiency in the enterprise - service sector, the computing power industry has a very fast update and iteration speed, with limited space for differential competition, and it is easy to produce the "Matthew effect." Therefore, the industry is bound to face continuous and fierce competition in the future.

The prosperity of the computing power market is also partly due to changes in the international situation, which is behind the technological competition between countries. The rise of domestic computing power started with the US technology export control and also meets the country's strategic needs for AI development. The currently popular enterprises have become favorites in the capital market in this context.

However, policies themselves are uncertain. On December 8th, the Trump administration announced the lifting of sales restrictions on the export of H200 chips to China. At present, the policy changes and their subsequent impacts are still unclear.

From the frenzy of virtual currencies to the wave of artificial intelligence, these two seemingly different tracks ultimately converge at the same underlying level - computing power. Tech tycoons and capital shuttle between them, and no one wants to be left behind on the track of wealth reconstruction and technological evolution.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Leopard Change" (ID: baobiannews), author: Zhang Jingwei, published by 36Kr with authorization.