Bitcoin mining stocks posted double-digit gains in January, decoupling from bitcoin’s price which has fallen 5% over the same period, as companies continue to expand into AI workloads.
The sector rally defied a downturn in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin started January at approximately $87,000 and touched a high of $97,000 before breaking support levels and falling to $83,000.
Former bitcoin mining hosting provider turned pure-play data center Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) led the market with a 55.36% gain to $37.41. The company has positioned itself as a dedicated infrastructure provider for AI workloads. IREN (NASDAQ: IREN) followed with a 48.98% increase to $57.06, while Hut 8 (NASDAQ: HUT) rose 34.77% to $62.37.
Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT) shares jumped 28.35% to $16.30 after the miner announced a strategic pivot to AI infrastructure. Riot Platforms recently acquired full ownership of its Rockdale, Texas, facility, a strategic acquisition for its new HPC leasing agreement with AMD (NASDAQ: AMD).
AMD will host AI computers at Riot’s Rockdale site and has contracted Riot Platforms for 25 megawatts of capacity valued at $311 million over 10 years. Riot Platforms indicated the total value of the lease could reach $1 billion if all options are exercised.
CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) rose 18.62% to $12.36 following its acquisition of 447 acres in Brazoria County, Texas. The miner plans to develop a 600-megawatt data center campus on the site.
J.P. Morgan maintained an Overweight rating on CleanSpark after the announcement. The bank noted that “management believes the proximity of recent acquisitions to large cities makes the infrastructure suitable for AI/HPC inference applications.”
Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY) gained 29.54% to $29.51. The firm is expanding its Helios data center in Texas to 1.6 gigawatts of capacity. CEO Mike Novogratz told CNBC the company “will be in negotiation and conversation with” hyperscale computing tenants for the 830-megawatt expansion.
Hut 8 presented plans for a $4 billion to $5 billion data center project in Logan County, Illinois. The proposed 500-megawatt facility is pending zoning approval.
Bitdeer (NASDAQ: BTDR) launched a cluster of NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 graphics processing units in Malaysia to support a transition to AI cloud services.
HIVE (NASDAQ: HIVE) announced plans to expand its operations in Paraguay by 100 megawatts in 2026. HIVE also launched a new high-performance computing business line. The stock rose 5.06% to $2.70.
Pure-play miners without significant AI announcements underperformed the broader group. MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) ended the month up 3.64% at $9.67. Bitfarms (NASDAQ: BITF) remained nearly flat, rising 1.68% to $2.42.
Header image by Bumgeun Nick Suh via Unsplash.
