Bitcoin gained 21.5% from the Aug. 17 shut via Aug. 21, but six of seven giant US-listed miners completed the identical buying and selling stretch a lot decrease. MARA Holdings rose 16.1% and got here closest to $BTC, whereas Cipher Digital fell 14.8%, TeraWulf misplaced 11.2%, Hut 8 dropped 8.1%, and IREN declined 6.8%.
The shares nonetheless offered as Bitcoin proxies had separated throughout one among Bitcoin’s strongest weeks of the yr.
QQQ fell 2.3% over these periods as long-term yields stayed unstable, inserting the miners inside a weaker technology-equity market. Their company construction helps clarify this, as a number of former mining specialists now derive income, financing, or ahead valuation from long-duration>Debt and Bitcoin gross sales are financing these buildouts, including building schedules, tools procurement, and buyer focus to valuations that when depended solely on hash worth.
Firm filings place our little group of public miners pivoting to AI at a number of completely different levels of that conversion, with TeraWulf producing $31.9 million of its $44.8 million second-quarter income from high-performance-computing leases and roughly $12.8 million from digital belongings.
Hut 8 says its Beacon Level leases cowl 949 megawatts of contracted IT capability and carry $26.6 billion of base-term contract worth, topic to future supply and tenant efficiency.
IREN reported $70.5 million of AI cloud income and $66.7 million of Bitcoin mining income in its June quarter, shifting AI above mining in its present income combine. Its Aug. 27 launch additionally put working annual recurring income at $1 billion as of Aug. 26 and contracted ARR tied to 2026 capability at $4 billion, with the latter focused to develop into operational by Dec. 31 topic to commissioning, testing, and buyer acceptance.
The quarter included a $450.4 million impairment largely tied to decommissioned mining {hardware} as websites convert to AI.
Cipher nonetheless recorded second-quarter income from Bitcoin mining, however it has contracted 700 megawatts of high-performance-computing capability throughout three websites and commenced delivering the primary capability at Black Pearl in August.
Riot Platforms sits nearer to the center, reporting $113.7 million of mining income, $23.2 million from information facilities and $37.3 million from engineering in a $174.2 million quarter. Its 241 megawatts of contracted AI capability carry roughly $9.8 billion of company-estimated long-term income, giving buyers a contract guide to worth alongside 11,380 Bitcoin held at June 30.
CleanSpark would have served as a mining-only management earlier within the yr, although that classification expired earlier than the August breakout. The corporate signed a 20-year, $6.6 billion> MARA now offers the closest giant mining-led comparator, even because it explores adjoining power and computing companies.
The break up reveals up within the beta
CryptoSlate analyzed Alpaca/IEX historic fairness closes for HUT, WULF, IREN, CIFR, RIOT, MARA, CLSK, and QQQ, along with Alpaca’s $BTC/USD closes, from Aug. 22, 2024 via Aug. 24, 2026.
Day by day inventory returns used trade buying and selling days, and every Bitcoin return coated the interval between consecutive stock-market dates, so Monday observations included the weekend. Ten-year Treasury yields got here from the Federal Reserve’s DGS10 sequence.
Shut-to-close returns from Aug. 17 via Aug. 21 seize the preliminary separation by pairing Bitcoin’s rally with QQQ as a broad technology-equity reference for a similar periods.
The longer calculation used rolling 90-trading-day correlations and univariate Bitcoin betas, with one comparability ending Aug. 22, 2025, and the present one ending Aug. 24, 2026.
A Bitcoin beta of 1.10 signifies that a 1% each day Bitcoin transfer was related to a median 1.10% transfer in miners throughout that window, whereas correlation measures how constantly their instructions and magnitudes traveled collectively.
Bitcoin beta declined from the comparable 2025 window for six corporations, with IREN holding close to 0.93, whereas Bitcoin correlation fell for six and edged up for WULF from an already low 0.17 to 0.22.
QQQ correlation exceeded Bitcoin correlation for all seven corporations within the present window, which means their each day returns tracked the Nasdaq proxy extra constantly than the coin they mine.
MARA retained the group’s highest Bitcoin correlation and beta, matching its heavier dependence on mining economics.
HUT, WULF, and CIFR occupy the underside half of present Bitcoin correlation as their data-center contracts carry extra weight in investor estimates, whereas MARA occupies the highest. IREN breaks the straightforward ordering as a result of its Bitcoin beta stayed regular at the same time as its QQQ correlation reached 0.60, permitting an working mining base and a big AI pipeline to look in the identical return sequence.
CryptoSlate additionally ran a 2026 year-to-date regression that included each day Bitcoin returns, QQQ returns, and the each day transfer within the 10-year Treasury yield. The three-factor mannequin defined roughly 28% to 45% of each day variation throughout the seven miners, whereas the estimated impact of a 10-basis-point yield enhance ranged from a 0.52% decline for WULF to a 0.79% acquire for CIFR.
4 charge coefficients have been damaging, and three have been optimistic, so the pattern does not help a typical period commerce throughout the group.
Combined coefficients block a straightforward bond analogy as a result of larger yields scale back the current worth of money flows anticipated years from now and lift undertaking financing prices, whereas each day fairness returns additionally take in tenant bulletins, building updates, Bitcoin holdings, energy costs, and capital raises.
Contracts clarify why the companies carry completely different exposures, whereas the info present no widespread charge commerce throughout the group.
Contracts give the miners a second threat map
TeraWulf is the perfect instance of an organization whose earnings assertion has already crossed into a brand new class. Excessive-performance-computing leases equipped about 71% of second-quarter income, and its filings describe repurposing or curbing mining tools as computing capability expands.
A Bitcoin rally can enhance the residual mining operation, whereas the fairness valuation now additionally is determined by tenant funds, building supply and the financing connected to the campus.
Cipher reveals how the stock-market identification can transfer earlier than the income combine catches up. Its June quarter nonetheless mirrored mining, although buyers can mannequin contracted computing capability and the company-estimated $793 million of common annual internet working earnings related to its base lease phrases.
The hole between present income and promised capability makes supply dates, capital value, and counterparty high quality central inputs for the share worth.
Riot and IREN carry each units of exposures extra visibly, though their present income mixes have separated. Mining provides most of Riot’s present income, whereas IREN’s June quarter put AI cloud income simply above Bitcoin mining income.
Their mining operations retain asset-price sensitivity, and signed AI agreements add one other stream of projected money flows. Every quarterly submitting can shift the burden on Bitcoin manufacturing versus data-center supply, making beta an output of the enterprise combine somewhat than a everlasting firm trait.
Contract bulletins carry loads of uncertainty as a result of base-term worth represents funds anticipated throughout a few years, income and internet working earnings estimates rely upon well timed supply, and project-level debt protects a mum or dad steadiness sheet solely throughout the phrases of its construction.
A multiyear headline worth may help classify the corporate’s path, although it could actually’t substitute for a reduced cash-flow mannequin or accomplished capability.
The Aug. 17 breakout captured an actual separation, and the longer pattern confirms a broader sector reclassification. MARA rose alongside the coin, each firm retained a optimistic present Bitcoin beta, and mining money stream nonetheless funds or helps a number of AI buildouts.
Bitcoin has develop into one issue amongst a number of, with its weight lowest the place contracted computing capability has develop into the middle of the fairness case.
“Bitcoin miners” now describe these corporations’ origin extra reliably than their vacation spot. Traders shopping for the group via a mining basket can obtain publicity to Bitcoin manufacturing, hyperscaler credit score, building schedules, power-delivery threat, undertaking finance and technology-equity multiples in several proportions.
The contracts assist clarify why the shares separated, whereas the remaining Bitcoin betas present their previous identification nonetheless travels with them.
