(CLO) Ben Gagnon led Bitfarms to move away from Bitcoin mining, renaming the company Keel Infrastructure and shifting its focus to developing energy infrastructure for AI and high-performance computing.
At age 37, CEO Ben Gagnon is leading a comprehensive transformation at Bitfarms, from a Bitcoin mining business to a developer of energy infrastructure for AI data centers. On April 1, 2026, the company changed its name to Keel Infrastructure and transferred its legal registration from Canada to the United States.
Gagnon began to realize the new direction in late 2023, when he concluded that Bitfarms' most valuable asset lay not in its cryptocurrency mining systems but in the large-scale power supply that the company controlled.
The turning point came in March 2024, when Core Scientific announced plans to renovate a Bitcoin mining facility in Austin, Texas, into an AI data center, then lease the electricity and infrastructure to CoreWeave. This agreement reinforced Gagnon's belief that Bitfarms could apply a similar model on a large scale.
At that time, Bitfarms was mired in governance instability, its stock price was weakening, and the board of directors had to search for a third leader within five years. After Riot Platforms made a hostile takeover bid worth $930 million, equivalent to $2.30 per share, the Bitfarms board appointed Gagnon as CEO in July 2024. He then helped broker an agreement under which Riot was allowed to nominate a board member while the Bitfarms co-founder stepped down. Riot ended the takeover bid and later sold its holdings.
Gagnon's strategy was to completely withdraw the company from Bitcoin mining, selling equipment and shifting power to AI and high-performance computing. After renaming, Keel operates as a pure infrastructure developer, leasing pre-powered facilities to customers instead of purchasing its own GPUs to provide computing power. Gagnon expects long-term leases to provide a more stable cash flow than the volatile Bitcoin mining operation.
Gagnon's path to the energy sector began with cryptocurrency. He grew up in Hong Kong, graduated with a degree in business and economics from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and then earned a master's degree in computer and network security from the University of Hong Kong.
Gagnon once set up an Ethereum mining operation at his girlfriend's (now wife's) parents' home in Taipei. After months of constant police inspections due to unusually high electricity consumption, he moved operations to Guangzhou and ran them there for two years before joining Bitfarms in 2019.
At Bitfarms, Gagnon leveraged discarded natural gas from remote oil fields in Alberta, Canada, to power containerized Bitcoin mining facilities. This experience in exploiting wasted energy helped him recognize the potential of Stronghold Digital, a company that owned waste coal power plants in Pennsylvania but was plagued by debt and legal disputes. In August 2024, just one month after Gagnon became CEO, Bitfarms reached an agreement to acquire Stronghold for $175 million.
Keel states that it controls 2.2 GW of approved or near-approved power generation capacity. The company does not invest in GPUs but focuses on developing land, facilities, power systems, and other essential infrastructure, then leasing ready-to-operate facilities to customers. This model allows Keel to avoid directly bearing the costs of computing hardware and aims for a stable revenue stream from long-term lease agreements.
Keel's priority projects include Panther Creek and Sharon in Pennsylvania, along with a hydroelectric facility at Moses Lake, Washington. These locations were chosen for their access to significant power sources, a crucial factor in expanding AI infrastructure. However, environmental permitting procedures remain a major obstacle to project development.
The largest project is the approximately 700-acre Scrubgrass area near Sharon, where Keel is looking to generate 1 GW of power. The company has exited Bitcoin mining but has not yet begun generating revenue from AI. Keel has raised nearly $600 million through convertible bonds and earned nearly $300 million from selling its Bitcoin holdings. After Gagnon stated the company would not be signing any customer contracts in 2026, Keel's stock fell by about 20%, bringing its market capitalization down to around $1.3 billion.
