Gold Bitcoin coin beside a pickaxe and computer mouse on a wooden surface, symbolizing crypto mining.
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Hut 8 and IREN AI Deals Lift Bitcoin Mining Stocks

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Shares of Bitcoin miners pivoting into artificial intelligence infrastructure rallied Monday after Hut 8 announced a second $9.8 billion lease and IREN signed $2.8 billion in AI cloud contracts.

Hut 8 rose as much as 17%, while IREN gained as much as 19%. Cipher Mining, TeraWulf, Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings also advanced as the announcements reinforced investor demand for powered data centers and AI computing capacity.

Hut 8 Adds Second $9.8B Lease at Beacon Point 

Hut 8 signed a second 15-year lease worth $9.8 billion for 352 megawatts of information technology capacity at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas.

The agreement doubles an existing investment-grade tenant’s contracted capacity at the site to 704 megawatts.

It fully commercializes the campus and raises Beacon Point’s base-term contract value to $19.6 billion. Renewal options could increase that figure to $50.2 billion.

Beacon Point Reaches 949MW of Contracted AI Capacity 

Hut 8 now has 949 megawatts of contracted AI data center capacity supported by 1,330 megawatts of utility supply.

The company expects to deliver the first data hall in Beacon Point’s second phase during the second quarter of 2028.

That timeline leaves Hut 8 with a large contracted pipeline, but also major financing, construction and delivery work before the new capacity begins operating.

IREN Signs $2.8B in AI Cloud Contracts 

IREN announced $2.8 billion in new multi-year cloud services agreements with AI developers across bare-metal infrastructure and managed cloud services.

The company raised its year-end 2026 AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target from $3.7 billion to more than $4 billion. About 85% of the revised target is now under contract.

IREN said customer prepayments attached to agreements signed since June 1 cover about 45% of the estimated graphics processing unit expenditure required for those deployments. Its contracts have a weighted average term of about four years.

Miner ETF Gains 8.5% As Cipher, MARA and Riot rise 

The announcements pushed gains across companies that began as Bitcoin miners but are now allocating power capacity to high-performance computing.

Cipher Mining advanced 11%, MARA gained 9%, TeraWulf added 6.4% and Riot Platforms rose 5%. The CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF climbed 8.5%.

Hut 8 Targets Q2 2028 Delivery As IREN Eyes 480MW by Year-End 

The rally does not remove the execution risk attached to the miners’ AI strategies. Hut 8 must finance and build the next Beacon Point phase, while IREN’s target depends on equipment delivery, commissioning, testing and customer acceptance.

Hut 8’s next confirmed milestone is the first Phase 2 data hall delivery in the second quarter of 2028. IREN is targeting 480 megawatts of AI cloud capacity by December 31.

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