IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) — the former bitcoin miner now reinventing itself as an AI data center and cloud infrastructure play — is back under pressure today after a blistering rally to start the week.
As of Tuesday afternoon (November 25, 2025), IREN stock is trading around the mid‑$40s, roughly 7–8% lower on the day, after closing Monday at $48.49, a 14.7% surge from the prior session. [1]
Despite today’s pullback, Iris Energy remains one of 2025’s standout high‑beta winners, powered by a $9.7 billion AI cloud contract with Microsoft, record Q1 FY26 earnings, and an aggressive pivot away from bitcoin mining toward GPU-heavy data centers. [2]
IREN stock price today: high volatility in the mid‑$40s
- Intraday price: About $44.8 in afternoon trading on November 25, down roughly $3.65 (≈ ‑7.5%) from Monday’s close.
- Previous close (Monday, Nov. 24): $48.49, up 14.74% on the day, with a trading range of $42.92–$48.96 and heavy volume of ~36 million shares. [3]
- Today’s range (so far): roughly $44.29–$49.70, indicating another very wide intraday swing.
Over the past year, the stock has been on an extreme rollercoaster:
- 52‑week low: about $5.13 on April 9, 2025
- 52‑week high: about $76.87 on November 5, 2025
- At today’s levels near $45, IREN trades around 41% below its recent high, but roughly 8x above its 52‑week low. [4]
Valuation and risk metrics underscore how speculative the story has become:
- Market cap: around $13–14 billion
- Trailing P/E: mid‑20s (≈24–25x)
- Beta: roughly 4.2, implying more than four times the volatility of the broader market. [5]
For traders, IREN is behaving more like a high‑growth tech/AI momentum name than a traditional infrastructure stock.
From hydro-powered bitcoin miner to AI cloud contender
Iris Energy started life as a renewable‑powered bitcoin miner, using mostly hydroelectric energy in British Columbia and later large-scale sites in Texas. The company rebranded to IREN Limited in November 2024, signaling a deliberate pivot to high‑performance computing (HPC) and AI cloud services. [6]
Key elements of the transformation include:
- A vertically integrated data center model: IREN owns land, power connections, and data centers, giving it tight control over costs and build‑out timelines. [7]
- Nearly 3 GW of grid‑connected power capacity across the U.S. and Canada, much of it tied to renewable sources — a major selling point for hyperscale AI customers under ESG pressure. [8]
- A strategic decision to pause bitcoin hashrate expansion around 50 exahash per second (EH/s) and redirect incremental capital toward AI infrastructure. [9]
In mid‑2025, IREN hit its 50 EH/s self‑mining target and reported monthly bitcoin mining revenue of $65.5 million and AI cloud revenue of $2.2 million for June — with AI hardware margins of about 98%, highlighting why management wants to lean into GPUs. [10]
The pivot is also a response to post‑halving bitcoin economics, where network difficulty is rising and rewards are lower, compressing miner margins across the sector. [11]
Microsoft’s $9.7 billion deal: the contract that changed the narrative
The single biggest catalyst behind IREN’s re‑rating in 2025 is its multi‑year AI cloud contract with Microsoft:
- Contract value:$9.7 billion over roughly five years
- Customer: Microsoft, for GPU cloud services
- Capacity: about 200 MW of liquid‑cooled GPU cloud at IREN’s Childress, Texas campus
- Hardware scale: roughly 76,000–78,000 Nvidia GPUs once fully deployed
- Prepayment: Microsoft commits to a 20% upfront payment, which helps fund the build‑out
- Expected ARR contribution: about $1.9 billion in annualized revenue from this contract alone. [12]
In its Q1 FY26 results release on November 6, IREN framed the Microsoft partnership as the cornerstone of a much larger AI strategy:
- Targeting $3.4 billion in AI Cloud annualized run‑rate revenue by the end of 2026, tied to an expansion plan of up to 140,000 GPUs across its platform. [13]
Research from ETF provider VettaFi notes that IREN and fellow miner Cipher Mining have together signed more than $15 billion in AI infrastructure contracts, underscoring how bitcoin miners’ power infrastructure is being repurposed as a scarce asset in the AI boom. [14]
For investors, the Microsoft deal effectively recasts IREN from “just another miner” to a potential hyperscale AI infrastructure provider — but also saddles the company with massive execution and financing obligations.
Record Q1 FY26 earnings: big numbers, with big caveats
The market’s excitement isn’t purely narrative. The numbers IREN reported earlier this month were eye‑catching:
For the quarter ended September 30, 2025 (Q1 FY26), IREN reported: [15]
- Total revenue:$240.3 million, up 355% year‑on‑year (vs. $52.8 million in Q1 FY25)
- Net income:$384.6 million, compared with a $51.7 million loss a year earlier
- EBITDA:$662.7 million, boosted heavily by unrealized gains on financial instruments
- Adjusted EBITDA:$91.7 million, up more than 35x year‑on‑year
Analyst commentary breaks down that Q1 revenue was still dominated by bitcoin mining, with about $232.9 million from mining and $7.3 million from AI cloud (albeit at much higher margins). [16]
On the per‑share level, multiple data providers show IREN delivering a huge earnings beat:
- EPS:$1.08 for Q1 FY26 vs. consensus estimates around $0.15, a beat of more than 600%. [17]
That said, investors should note:
- A meaningful portion of net income and EBITDA reflects non‑cash mark‑to‑market gains on derivative instruments tied to capital raising (e.g., prepaid forwards and capped calls on convertible notes). [18]
- AI cloud still represents a small slice of current revenue, with the Microsoft and other GPU contracts mostly in ramp‑up mode rather than fully online. [19]
The next major checkpoint will be the Q2 FY26 earnings call, scheduled for February 11, 2026, when investors will look for updated guidance on AI capacity, utilization, and contract economics. [20]
Why IREN stock is pulling back today
Given Monday’s dramatic move, today’s red ink looks more like a classic “cool‑off” session than a thesis‑breaking event.
Some context:
- On Monday, November 24, IREN jumped 14.74%, from $42.26 to $48.49, on the back of strong sector momentum and ongoing analyst attention. [21]
- A recent MarketBeat recap highlighted that JPMorgan raised its price target from $28 to $39 while maintaining an Underweight rating, helping fuel interest even among skeptics; the same piece notes that IREN’s analyst consensus skews “Moderate Buy” with a wide target range. [22]
- Across the sector, crypto‑mining and AI infrastructure names gained up to 20% as Amazon unveiled plans to invest up to $50 billion in AI infrastructure for U.S. government agencies, lifting sentiment toward companies with large power footprints like IREN. [23]
After that kind of surge, a 7–8% intraday pullback with still‑elevated volume is consistent with:
- Short‑term traders locking in profits
- Options hedging and repositioning around new price targets
- A market that is still trying to price the balance between massive growth potential and equally massive execution risk
With a beta above 4 and a history of double‑digit daily moves, volatility is very much part of the IREN package. [24]
How Wall Street sees IREN stock now
Sell‑side analysts are fascinated but divided, and the spread in price targets tells its own story.
Recent highlights include:
- Compass Point more than doubling its target from $50 to $105, reiterating a Buy rating and arguing that IREN now has the “power, partners, and capital” to scale its AI cloud business rapidly. [25]
- Cantor Fitzgerald reportedly maintains an Overweight rating, with a target as high as $136 following the latest earnings. [26]
- HC Wainwright sits on the other side with a Sell rating, even as it raised its target from $45 to $56, reflecting concern that the stock has run ahead of fundamentals. [27]
- A MarketBeat summary tallies 13 Buy, 3 Hold, and 3 Sell ratings, with an average target around $70.43 as of November 24. [28]
- Benzinga, using a slightly different sample, cites a consensus target near $54, with individual targets ranging from $10 to $136. [29]
Put simply: Wall Street agrees that IREN is important, not what it’s worth.
The current share price in the mid‑$40s sits below many bullish targets but well above cautious scenarios, leaving plenty of room for large swings as new information on AI ramp‑up, financing, and profitability emerges.
Key risks for IREN stock investors
For all the upside excitement, IREN carries a long list of risks that potential investors should weigh carefully:
- Execution risk on mega‑projects
- The Microsoft contract requires deploying tens of thousands of cutting‑edge GPUs across several phases at the Childress campus, with tight timelines into 2026. Any delays in construction, power delivery, cooling infrastructure, or chip supply could hit revenue and damage relationships. [30]
- Financing and leverage
- IREN expects capital expenditures of around $5.8 billion just for Dell‑supplied GPUs and related gear, plus additional data‑center construction. [31]
- The company recently raised $1.0 billion in zero‑coupon convertible notes and increased GPU financing to $400 million, with $1.8 billion in cash reported as of late October. Future growth still depends on additional financing and customer prepayments. [32]
- Concentration risk
- Microsoft is a flagship anchor customer. While IREN has also signed multi‑year deals with AI players like Together AI, Fluidstack, and Fireworks AI, losing or resizing a hyperscale customer contract would be painful. [33]
- Bitcoin exposure isn’t gone
- Even as the company pivots, bitcoin mining still generates the majority of revenue today, tying cash flow to crypto prices, mining difficulty, and energy markets. [34]
- Regulatory and energy risks
- AI data centers and miners are coming under increasing scrutiny over power consumption, grid stress, and environmental impact, particularly in Texas and Canada. Changes in policy or local permitting could affect timelines and margins. [35]
In short: IREN offers outsized upside but equally outsized downside if the AI build‑out stumbles, financing tightens, or macro/sector conditions shift.
What to watch next for IREN stock
For those following IREN day‑to‑day, several milestones could move the stock from here:
- Build‑out progress at Childress and Sweetwater
- Investors will look for updates on energization of Horizon 1–4 at Childress (200 MW of liquid‑cooled capacity) plus progress toward the 1.4 GW Sweetwater 1 substation energization targeted for April 2026. [36]
- GPU deliveries and AI capacity ramp
- IREN’s roadmap calls for tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs across Prince George (British Columbia) and Texas, with AI cloud ARR targeted above $500 million by early 2026 and $3.4 billion by end‑2026. Any revisions — positive or negative — will be closely watched. [37]
- Sector flows into AI‑infrastructure and miner ETFs
- ETFs like the CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI), where IREN is a top holding, have become important vehicles for institutional capital into the theme. Inflows or outflows from such funds can amplify IREN’s moves. [38]
- Next earnings report and guidance (February 2026)
- The February 11, 2026 call will likely focus on AI utilization, updated capex plans, and how quickly mix is shifting away from bitcoin toward AI cloud. [39]
Bottom line
On November 25, 2025, IREN stock is giving back part of Monday’s big gains, trading in the mid‑$40s after a near‑15% surge the previous session. The pullback comes against a backdrop of:
- A transformational $9.7 billion Microsoft AI cloud contract
- Record quarterly revenue and earnings, boosted by derivative gains and crypto tailwinds
- An increasingly crowded but still early AI infrastructure supercycle, where power, GPUs, and grid access are the scarce resources
For investors, IREN is a high‑conviction story either way: bulls see a renewable‑powered CoreWeave‑style AI infrastructure champion in the making; bears worry that expectations and leverage are racing ahead of execution.
Disclosure: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. Always do your own research and consider consulting a licensed financial adviser before making investment decisions.
References
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