River

Bitcoin

April

Bitcoin mining firm Hut 8 is the latest crypto infrastructure company to lock in large-scale, Google-backed financing, as miners increasingly pivot toward artificial intelligence data centers to offset post-halving pressure on their core business.
On Dec. 17, Hut 8 <a href="https://www.hut8.com/news-insights/press-releases/hut-8-signs-15-year-245-mw-ai-data-center-lease-at-river-bend-campus">announced</a> it had signed a 15-year lease agreement valued at $7 billion with cloud infrastructure firm Fluidstack for 245 megawatts of IT capacity at its River Bend data center campus in Louisiana.
The agreement includes a financial backstop from Google, which guarantees lease payment obligations for the base term.
The deal ranks among the largest AI-focused infrastructure commitments ever made by a publicly listed Bitcoin miner and comes as investor enthusiasm pushes Hut 8 shares sharply higher.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/explained/what-is-bitcoin-mining-explained">Related: What is Bitcoin mining? Explained</a>
<h2 id="hut-8-stock-surges-on-ai-infrastructure-deal">Hut 8 stock surges on AI infrastructure deal</h2>
Hut 8 stock jumped nearly 4% in regular trading on Dec. 16, closing at $36.85, before surging more than 21% in premarket trading the following morning to $44.60. The stock is now up roughly 79% year to date.
While Google is involved, it is not leasing the data center, nor is it operating Bitcoin mining or AI workloads at the site.
Instead, Google is providing a financial backstop that guarantees lease payments and certain pass-through obligations for the 15-year base term.
In simple terms, Google is acting as a co-signer.
<blockquote>
 “River Bend reflects the strength of Hut 8’s power-first, innovation-driven development model, validated by the world-class counterparties we are executing alongside,” Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot said in the company’s press release. “This Agreement is the result of disciplined, patient execution as we focused on securing the right transaction, not just the first.”
</blockquote>
The lease includes three five-year renewal options that could lift the total contract value to approximately $17.7 billion. Fluidstack also holds a right of first offer for up to an additional 1,000 megawatts of future expansion capacity at the site, subject to power availability.
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<h2 id="hut-8-s-deal-with-google-explained">Hut 8's deal with Google explained</h2>
"Think of this like building a giant shopping mall in the 1990s," told one pseudonymous crypto analyst when asked to explain the deal.
Hut 8 is the developer that wants to build the mall. Fluidstack is the company that agrees to rent a huge chunk of space for the next 15 years. But instead of trusting just the renter, the bank asks: “What happens if this tenant can’t pay?”
Google isn’t running stores in the mall and isn’t managing the building. Instead, Google is like a&nbsp;co-signing the lease. If the tenant ever misses rent, Google steps in and pays. That single promise changes everything.
In the 1990s, this is similar to how blockbuster retail projects got funded when IBM or Microsoft guaranteed long-term corporate leases. Banks were suddenly comfortable lending billions because the risk wasn’t on a startup anymore it was tied to a household name with deep pockets.
<h2 id="deal-economics-and-expansion-potential">Deal economics and expansion potential</h2>
The lease includes three five-year renewal options, potentially lifting total contract value to approximately $17.7 billion.
Fluidstack also holds a right of first offer for up to 1,000 additional megawatts of future expansion capacity, subject to power availability.
Hut 8 has secured an initial 330 megawatts of utility capacity from Entergy Louisiana, with room to scale significantly.
The first data hall is expected to be completed in Q2 2027, with additional facilities coming online later that year.
The company expects the lease to generate about $6.9 billion in cumulative net operating income, or roughly $454 million annually over the base term.
Project financing is expected to cover up to 85% of costs, with J.P. Morgan acting as lead left loan underwriter and Goldman Sachs serving as co-underwriter, subject to final documentation.
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<h2 id="bitcoin-miners-are-pivoting-to-ai">Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI&nbsp;</h2>
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/bitcoin-mining">Bitcoin mining</a> secures the network by validating transactions using specialized computers. In return, miners earn newly issued Bitcoin.
Every four years, those rewards are cut in half during an event known as the halving.
The most recent halving in April 2024 reduced block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, compressing margins across the industry.
While Bitcoin is still trading between roughly $86,000 and $90,000 this week — after pulling back from an all-time high near $126,000 — mining economics have become more competitive.
At the same time, Bitcoin’s global hash rate has surged to record levels, increasing competition and energy costs.
AI data centers offer miners a way to monetize their power infrastructure with more predictable, long-term revenue.
<h2 id="google-backed-miners-are-becoming-a-pattern">Google-backed miners are becoming a pattern</h2>
Hut 8 is not alone.
Other Bitcoin miners, including <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/stock/google-terawulf-crypto-mining">TeraWulf</a> and IREN, have positioned themselves as AI-ready data center operators capable of supporting non-mining workloads tied to hyperscaler demand.
&nbsp;On Dec. 16, the Bitcoin mining firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/stock/google-terawulf-crypto-mining">TeraWulf</a>&nbsp;stock rose about 4%, closing at $12.99, before extending gains in premarket trading on Dec. 17, where shares climbed another 2.8% to $13.35.
The rally builds on a much larger move earlier in the year. TeraWulf previously surged more than 35% in August after announcing a strategic partnership with Google Cloud, a deal that fueled investor enthusiasm around the miner’s pivot toward high-performance computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The stock later hit an all-time high of $15.29 on Oct. 10, following disclosures tied to Alphabet’s growing involvement.
Shares of TeraWulf are now up roughly 129% year to date.
Some crypto infrastructure firms have also <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/stock/stock-surges-after-microsoft-deal">explored</a> relationships connected to Microsoft-backed cloud and AI ecosystems, though those arrangements typically involve indirect hosting or compute partnerships rather than direct financial guarantees.
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/bitcoin-mining-stocks-in-focus-as-strategic-focus-shifts-toward-ai">Related: Bitcoin mining stocks in focus as strategic focus shifts toward AI</a>

$7B Google-backed deal sends crypto stock soaring

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