Bitcoin mining companies that diversified into AI and high-performance computing (HPC) outperformed pure-play cryptocurrency miners in 2025.
IREN (NASDAQ: IREN) and Cipher (NASDAQ: CIFR) led the sector with triple-digit stock returns following multi-billion dollar agreements with major technology firms, while traditional miners like Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA) and Bitdeer (NASDAQ: BTDR) faced declines.
IREN posted a 285% return for the year to lead the group tracked in the sector. The company signed a five-year agreement with Microsoft on November 3 valued at approximately $9.7 billion to provide cloud computing services. Microsoft will access NVIDIA GB300 GPUs managed by IREN under the terms of the deal. The contract structure includes a 20% prepayment to support infrastructure development.
Cipher also secured significant partnerships to bolster its valuation. The company gained 218% in 2025 after it finalized a 15-year lease agreement with Amazon Web Services on November 3, which followed a separate, $3 billion deal with Fluidstack . The $5.5 billion deal involves hosting AI workloads at Cipher’s 300-megawatt Bear Lake facility, with the first phase scheduled to come online in July 2026 as Amazon seeks to secure long-term capacity.
Hut 8 (NASDAQ: HUT) followed with a 124% return for the year after expanding its infrastructure footprint. The company announced a partnership on December 17 with Anthropic and Fluidstack to develop AI data centers in the United States. The 15-year agreement is valued at $7 billion and begins with a 245-megawatt project in Louisiana. Hut 8 indicated the total contract value could reach $17.7 billion with a 3% annual escalator included in the terms.
Companies that maintained a heavier focus on self-mining or faced operational setbacks lagged behind their diversified peers. MARA ended the year down 46%. Rosenblatt Securities cut its price target on the stock to $15 on December 20, citing MARA’s high exposure to bitcoin mining and sinking profitability as reasons for the adjustment.
Bitdeer recorded the steepest decline among the major miners with a 48% loss. The company faced a class action lawsuit filed on December 4 regarding the development timeline of its SEAL04 chip, the key component for its SEALMINER A4 bitcoin mining rig.
The stock performance of other miners shows just how mixed the sector’s performance was in 2025. Terawulf (NASDAQ: WULF) returned 103% and Bitfarms (NASDAQ: BITF) gained 58%. CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK) ended with a 10% gain, while Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) rose 4%. Hive (NASDAQ: HIVE) fell 9% and Cango (NYSE: CANG) dropped 32%.
Header image by by Yashowardhan Singh via Unsplash.
