AI data center lease deals are rapidly converting Bitcoin miners (Hut 8, Cipher Mining, Wulf Miners) from pure-crypto toward shared AI capacity; a $50 billion financing gap remains in deploying new builds.
Bitcoin miners pursuing the artificial intelligence and high-performance computing boom face an estimated $50 billion near-term funding gap, with long-term capital requirements reaching roughly $221 billion, according to VanEck's latest report.
The 71-year-old asset manager argued that investors should increasingly value miners based on gross energized power rather than Bitcoin production, reflecting the sector's rapid shift toward AI infrastructure. This reframing comes as some of the largest miners have announced multibillion-dollar hyperscaler leases.
Companies with signed AI leases, including Cipher Mining Inc., Hut 8 Corp., and TeraWulf Inc., trade at more than 10 times gross energized power. By contrast, Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. and CleanSpark Inc., which are still marketing future capacity, trade at roughly 2 to 6 times that metric.
Cipher Mining anchored its premium with a nearly $5.5 billion, 15-year lease with Amazon Web Services to deliver 300 megawatts of AI capacity beginning in July 2026. Hut 8 has layered a $9.8 billion, 352 MW Texas deal on top of a $7 billion Louisiana lease with Google-backed Fluidstack. TeraWulf locked in $3.7 billion in Fluidstack contracts at its Lake Mariner campus, while Google provided a $1.8 billion backstop investment in exchange for an 8% equity stake.
VanEck estimates the group has delivered only approximately 25% of leased capacity to date. Construction milestones and project execution—not deal announcements—will now drive valuations, with companies missing delivery targets facing sharp re-ratings. Marathon Digital faces particular scrutiny, as analysts have flagged caution around its AI pivot despite closing a $1.5 billion acquisition of Long Ridge to add over 1 gigawatt of potential capacity.
VanEck also highlighted HIVE Digital Technologies as one of the sector's most aggressive funding stories, with capital needs far beyond its current market value as it pursues AI Gigafactory construction. The report identified upside potential for HIVE, Bit Digital, Wytec International, and IREN, while Marathon Digital, CleanSpark, TeraWulf, and Core Scientific appeared closer to fair value.
IREN's case rests on a $9.7 billion multi-year Microsoft GPU cloud contract and a separate $2.1 billion Nvidia investment tied to delivering up to 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure. Core Scientific faces a different trajectory after shareholders voted down its all-stock merger with CoreWeave, leaving the company to pursue its existing 200 MW hosting contract independently.
As miners sign longer-term AI contracts, tenant quality has become a critical differentiator. Investment-grade hyperscaler customers can reduce financing costs to 6% to 10%, compared with mid-to-high-teen rates typically associated with traditional Bitcoin mining. This gap is driving miners toward credit markets. Hut 8 is seeking up to $3.25 billion in senior secured notes for its Louisiana buildout, while Cipher is raising $810 million through a subsidiary to finance its AWS-anchored Stingray facility.
VanEck expects many AI-focused miners to eventually resemble data-center real estate investment trusts or become acquisition targets, making financing and execution increasingly important to investor valuations.