Bitcoin miner stocks surge as cryptocurrency value declines

Riot’s stock increase is largely attributed to a recently secured lease agreement. The company announced on November 4 a 15-year lease with an unnamed artificial intelligence (AI) company for its Corsicana, Texas, campus. This deal, covering 910 megawatts of computing capacity, is projected to be worth approximately $28 billion.

This agreement builds upon Riot’s existing 20-year arrangement, valued at $9.1 billion, with another AI lab, covering 191 megawatts, and a 50-megawatt lease with AMD (NASDAQ: AMD). Riot anticipates that almost all of its future cash flow will be derived from these long-term leases with AI firms, rather than fluctuating Bitcoin prices.

Bitdeer is also transitioning towards a similar model. The company recently finalized a $4.7 billion, 16-year colocation lease with AI lab Volta in Tydal, Norway, encompassing 121 megawatts. Implementation will occur in phases, beginning in December. While Bitdeer generated $168.4 million in revenue from self-mining, its AI cloud services brought in $14 million in the second quarter, a significant increase from $1.3 million the previous year.

Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) serves as an example of this shift, generating $215.4 million in colocation revenue in the third quarter, a nearly 60% increase. Total revenue for the quarter reached $232.9 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $133.6 million and a 57% adjusted EBITDA margin. CEO Adam Sullivan has indicated that the company intends to discontinue Bitcoin mining operations by the end of the year.

The lease agreements for Riot and Bitdeer are denominated in U.S. dollars, not Bitcoin, and do not require tenants to hold or purchase the cryptocurrency. These miners are actively selling their Bitcoin holdings. Riot sold 20,264 Bitcoin in 2026, equivalent to $1.5 billion, reducing its holdings from 11,380 at the end of the second quarter to just 2,418. Bitdeer’s weekly update on November 6 reported mining and selling 258.6 BTC, resulting in no holdings apart from customer deposits.

Industry peer Core Scientific’s Sullivan, who also competes for AI tenants, praised the Corsicana deal as a significant milestone. However, he cautioned that “capital is the throttle on all new development,” highlighting a potential vulnerability for Bitdeer. Bitdeer’s stock has fallen 46.3% this year and 10.4% over the past week, while Riot has risen 31.9% in 2026 and 30.4% over the past week. Bitdeer reported a gross margin of -3.7% in the second quarter, with $1.8 billion in borrowings and one customer accounting for 51.6% of its revenue in the first half of the year.

Bitdeer filed in August to sell up to $1 billion in new shares through an at-the-market program. JPMorgan estimates the cost of producing Bitcoin at nearly $78,000 in September, while Riot’s direct production cost per Bitcoin was $39,265 in the third quarter.

The rally in Bitcoin miner stocks doesn’t necessarily translate to higher Bitcoin prices, as these companies are selling their Bitcoin production while securing revenue through AI-related leases.