Miners Bet on AI Real Estate, Selling Down BTC Holdings
Riot Platforms' $9.1 billion lease to Anthropic sent Bitcoin miner stocks soaring, but it may be bad news for BTC itself.
The deal covers 191 megawatts at Riot's Rockdale, Texas campus over 20 years, worth up to $16.1 billion with extensions. Rival miners TeraWulf, Cipher Mining, and Hut 8 rallied in sympathy the same day, gaining 4.33%, 5.39%, 3.40%, and 3.39% respectively.
However, this rally has little to do with Bitcoin's price, which slipped 0.49% over the same stretch and struggled to move beyond the $62,000, $65,000 range.
Riot, along with other traditional BTC miners, have been on the rise recently. The company sold 4,300 coins from its Bitcoin holdings in the second quarter, which fell from 15,680 BTC to 11,380 BTC, to fund its AI buildout at Rockdale.