Bitcoin Miners Fund Surges as Leasing Deals Drive Returns

The Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (NASDAQ:WGMI) has seen a 97% increase in value over the past year, despite Bitcoin's 46% drop. This divergence is due to the fund's holdings of bitcoin miners, which have pivoted from mining to signing multi-billion-dollar AI infrastructure leases.

WGMI's largest holdings, including Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT), Core Scientific (NASDAQ:CORZ), and IREN (NASDAQ:IREN), have inked massive deals with companies like AMD, NVIDIA, and Microsoft. These contracts have decoupled WGMI from Bitcoin's performance, making it a fundamentally different investment.

The AI leasing deals are driving the fund's returns, with Core Scientific's 15-year AMD lease worth over $14 billion in base contracted revenue across 530 megawatts. IREN's five-year NVIDIA cloud contract is also significant, with a total value of $3.4 billion plus an additional up to $2.1 billion investment from NVIDIA.

Investors seeking direct Bitcoin exposure should use the iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ:IBIT) ETF, as WGMI now behaves more like an AI infrastructure landlord than a crypto proxy.