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Bitcoin started 2026 around $88,700 and has spent much of the year trading lower, hovering near $76,000 to $78,000 as April comes to a close—about a 12% decline since January 1. Against that backdrop, the performance of leading bitcoin mining stocks has diverged sharply from BTC, reflecting a shift toward artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure.
Through the first four months of 2026, most of the top ten publicly listed bitcoin miners have posted year-to-date (YTD) gains of roughly 25% to 73%, while bitcoin is down about 12% over the same period. The article attributes the outperformance less to bitcoin mining economics and more to AI infrastructure positioning—particularly long-term contracted HPC revenue tied to hyperscaler deals.
Terawulf leads the group with a 73.58% YTD gain after securing more than $12.8 billion in contracted HPC revenue. Hut 8 follows with a 67.75% YTD gain, trading at $77.06, described as the highest share price among the top ten miners by market valuation.
Riot Platforms is up 47.04% YTD. Applied Digital and Core Scientific are also reported to be up more than 40% YTD. The article frames these moves as equity gains that are multiple times larger than bitcoin’s decline over the period.
The article says the sector has undergone a fundamental repositioning in early 2026. Miners hold assets that hyperscalers want—low-cost power, industrial-scale sites, and grid expertise. Companies that converted that infrastructure into AI and HPC data center capacity have been rewarded, while those that have not moved as quickly have lagged.
It also highlights that miners already addressed many operational challenges associated with large-scale power loads, including permitting, utility negotiations, substations, heat dissipation, and 24/7 uptime requirements. Power procurement alone can take years and can delay data center projects before they begin.
Terawulf (WULF): The company locked in over $12.8 billion in contracted HPC revenue through long-term leases with Google-backed Fluidstack and Core42. The article cites sites in Hawesville, Kentucky, and Morgantown, Maryland, scaling toward about 1 GW of available power. It also states that HPC now drives over half of annual revenues.
Hut 8 (HUT): Hut 8 is described as anchoring a $7 billion, 15-year lease at its River Bend campus with Anthropic and Fluidstack as counterparties. It is also building an 8.5 GW development pipeline across due diligence, exclusivity, and active construction stages.
Core Scientific (CORZ): Core Scientific secured roughly $10–12 billion in contracted revenue through Coreweave partnerships spanning 590 MW of critical IT load across six sites. The article also cites a $1.2 billion expansion in Denton, Texas, and notes analyst expectations that HPC could drive about 70% of 2026 revenue.
Applied Digital (APLD): Applied Digital signed multiple 15-year leases with Coreweave for 400 MW of critical IT load at its North Dakota campus. The article estimates roughly $11 billion in contracted revenue and says HPC hosting margins are above 25%.
IREN Limited (IREN): IREN is listed as the top ten miner by market cap at $16.71 billion. The article cites a Microsoft AI cloud partnership valued in the billions and a 4.5 GW power pipeline, with HPC revenue projected to reach 71% of total by year-end.
Cipher Digital (CIFR): Now fully rebranded from Cipher Mining, the company is described as exiting most bitcoin operations and replacing them with a $9.3 billion contracted HPC backlog. The backlog is anchored by a 300 MW AWS deal and a Google-backed Fluidstack agreement.
The article notes that not every miner is at the same stage, and that differences in execution timelines can explain performance gaps. It points to MARA Holdings (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) with YTD returns of 29.56% and 47.04%, respectively.
Riot Platforms: The article says Riot has 1.7 GW of power capacity across Texas sites, including Corsicana and Rockdale. It also references construction of 112 MW of AI-ready core-and-shell capacity at Corsicana as part of a planned 600 MW buildout.
MARA: The article says MARA is building international exposure through its majority stake in Exaion, an EDF subsidiary bringing European AI and HPC cloud expertise.
Bitdeer (BTDR): Bitdeer is reported at 7.62% YTD, down 6.40% over the past five trading days. The article says it is building what it describes as Norway’s largest AI data center, including a 180 MW facility in Tydal targeting Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs, and converting sites in Ohio and Washington State. However, it states the pipeline has not yet translated into contracted revenue at the scale investors are rewarding elsewhere.
Cleanspark (CLSK): Cleanspark is up 25.88% YTD. The article says it has over 1.8 GW of power under contract and advanced discussions with hyperscale tenants, but that initial AI deployments are not targeted until 2026–2027.
The article’s overall takeaway for January through April is that miners winning in 2026 are those that closed hyperscaler deals first. It argues that power capacity alone is not enough; the market is pricing contracted backlog, delivery timelines, and the quality of counterparties. It cites Terawulf, Hut 8, Core Scientific, Applied Digital, IREN, and Cipher Digital as examples of execution, while noting that other companies are working to catch up.
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