Cipher Mining and TeraWulf shares decline sharply as rising interest rates pressure valuations for bitcoin miners executing AI infrastructure pivots.
Shares of Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) miners pivoting to AI infrastructure declined Tuesday morning, led by Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR), which fell 9% to $16.77, and TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF), which dropped 7% to $16.45. The selloff was driven primarily by rising U.S. Treasury yields.
The 10-year Treasury yield is trading near the upper bound of its 52-week range, pressuring valuations for companies financing multi-year data center construction while awaiting contracted revenue that will not arrive until later years. Consequently, HIVE Digital Technologies (NASDAQ:HIVE) fell 7% to $2.87, erasing most of Monday’s gains. MARA Holdings dropped 5% to $9.24, and Riot Platforms declined 4% to $19.23.
The 10-year yield currently stands at 4.7%, near the top of its 52-week range of 3.9% to 4.7%. Every company in this sector is committing significant capital today for revenue streams that will not materialize until 2027 and 2028. Higher interest rates simultaneously increase borrowing costs and elevate the discount rate applied to those future cash flows.
Broader market weakness compounded the decline: the Nasdaq fell more than 1%, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped over 5%, reflecting sector-wide pressure on AI infrastructure exposure. These miners continue to operate legacy Bitcoin mining divisions and maintain cryptocurrency treasuries while expanding high-performance computing (HPC) capacity for AI tenants. As a result, long-term interest rates serve as a unifying macroeconomic driver for the entire group. (For context, we recently profiled seven non-chipmaker suppliers fueling this same infrastructure buildout in a complimentary AI infrastructure report.)
Cipher Mining faced additional headwinds beyond broader macro trends, as several major sell-side analysts revised their outlooks on the company’s aggressive pivot toward AI infrastructure. As a capital-intensive Bitcoin miner constructing industrial-scale HPC data centers for hyperscale clients, Cipher occupies a niche within this peer group. Its stock had risen 25% year-to-date through Monday’s close, meaning Tuesday’s decline followed a period of substantial prior gains.
TeraWulf operates the Lake Mariner facility in New York, which features 102 MW of revenue-generating critical IT capacity and 336 MW under construction. The company also manages a pipeline of approximately 2.1 GW across five sites, including 839 MW of contracted capacity secured via long-term leases with Anthropic and Core42. TeraWulf’s shares had gained 53% year-to-date through Monday’s close. Meanwhile, Riot Platforms has secured 241 MW of contracted critical IT capacity at its Rockdale facility, representing $9.8 billion in long-term contracted revenue. Riot is also evaluating a non-binding letter of intent for up to 1 GW at a Corsicana campus, with its stock up 58% year-to-date through Monday’s close.
MARA Holdings operates 19 data centers across four continents and maintains a Bitcoin treasury of 35,577 BTC. The company recently secured development rights to a 2 GW site in Texas, adding to a targeted powered land portfolio capped at 4.8 GW. MARA’s shares had risen 8% year-to-date through Monday’s close.
HIVE Digital Technologies rallied Monday following news of a five-year, $350 million GPU cloud services agreement executed through its BUZZ HPC subsidiary. The contract is projected to generate $70 million in annualized revenue, requires $185 million in capital expenditures, and includes a $35 million upfront customer deposit. However, the agreement provided no insulation against shifting interest rates, and HIVE’s shares had climbed 19% year-to-date through Monday’s close.
The Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (NASDAQ:WGMI) fell 6% to $47.32, landing squarely between the steepest individual declines. This performance indicates broad-based sector selling rather than isolated company-specific weakness. As a narrowly focused thematic fund concentrated exclusively in Bitcoin miners, WGMI carries significant concentration risk. Through Monday’s close, the ETF had gained 31% year-to-date.
The bullish thesis rests on the fact that Cipher Mining, TeraWulf, Riot, MARA, and HIVE hold substantial contracted revenue backlogs, control scarce power capacity, and maintain long-duration leases with creditworthy AI clients—fundamentals that remained unchanged Tuesday. Conversely, the bearish argument highlights that these are currently unprofitable companies in intensive capital-investment phases, where elevated interest rates directly increase funding costs. Cipher Mining, in particular, is facing downward revisions from equity analysts.
Given the pronounced volatility of this peer group and the relatively low absolute share prices of several constituents, investors should maintain moderate position sizing. Traders may monitor whether the 10-year Treasury yield breaches its 52-week high. Meanwhile, shareholders should assess whether their current exposure can withstand additional interest rate fluctuations ahead of the 2027 and 2028 lease delivery milestones, when new projects are expected to begin generating cash flow.
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