Core Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ: CORZ) stock traded sharply lower on Monday, December 15, 2025, as investors recalibrated risk across crypto- and AI-infrastructure-linked names.
By mid-afternoon, CORZ was hovering around $15.2–$15.3, down roughly 7%–8% on the session after opening near $16.50. The day’s range stretched from about $15.25 on the low end to roughly $16.69 at the high, highlighting the kind of intraday volatility traders have come to expect from the stock. [1]
That volatility is happening in a bigger narrative shift: Core Scientific is no longer “just” a bitcoin miner in the public imagination. It’s increasingly valued as a digital infrastructure and high-density colocation platform—an on-ramp for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads—while still carrying meaningful crypto exposure.
What’s driving Core Scientific stock today
There wasn’t an obvious single-company headline on Dec. 15 (no fresh IR release hitting wires today), but CORZ is showing up prominently in screens that track the most actively traded blockchain-related equities.
MarketBeat’s daily blockchain stock screen flagged Core Scientific as one of the names with the highest recent dollar trading volume among blockchain-linked stocks, putting it in the same “active risk bucket” as other miners and crypto infrastructure plays. [2]
In other words: when investors de-risk, CORZ is often treated like a high-beta vehicle. That can cut both ways—strong upside in bullish “AI + crypto” tape, sharp drawdowns when sentiment turns.
Why Core Scientific still sits at the center of the AI data center trade
Core Scientific describes itself as a leader in digital infrastructure spanning digital asset mining and high-density colocation services, with a strategy focused on converting significant portions of its facilities to support AI-related workloads and next-generation colocation. [3]
This pivot matters because, in today’s market, “power + data center capacity” is a scarce resource. Core Scientific’s footprint across multiple U.S. states—and its operational experience running power-dense sites—gives it a plausible lane in the AI infrastructure buildout. [4]
The CoreWeave merger is over — but the commercial relationship remains a key valuation anchor
One of the biggest overhangs of 2025 was whether Core Scientific would be absorbed by CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) in a blockbuster all-stock deal.
Here’s the timeline investors are still trading off:
- July 7, 2025: CoreWeave and Core Scientific announced a definitive all-stock merger agreement using a fixed exchange ratio (0.1235 CoreWeave shares per Core Scientific share). The companies framed the deal as a way for CoreWeave to verticalize data center ownership and secure power capacity for AI/HPC expansion. [5]
- October 2025: The deal ran into escalating opposition. Reuters reported Core Scientific’s board urged shareholders to vote in favor, while resistance from major shareholders and scrutiny around valuation and structure intensified. [6]
- October 20, 2025: Proxy advisor ISS recommended investors vote against the transaction, arguing Core Scientific had achieved meaningful success standalone and could continue independently. [7]
- October 30, 2025: Shareholders voted the deal down. Reuters characterized it as the culmination of a months-long investor/proxy campaign and noted it was CoreWeave’s second failed attempt to acquire the company (after a rejected June 2024 cash offer). [8]
- October 30, 2025 (company confirmation): Core Scientific formally terminated the merger agreement and stated it would remain publicly traded under ticker CORZ. [9]
The market implication today: Core Scientific is trading again as a standalone execution story, not a merger-arb math problem—though it remains tightly tied to CoreWeave via commercial arrangements and investor expectations for future customer announcements.
The most recent fundamentals: Q3 2025 shows the pivot in motion (but not “finished”)
Core Scientific’s latest detailed financial snapshot (as of Dec. 15) comes from its fiscal third-quarter 2025 results released in late October.
Key figures the market continues to reference:
- Total revenue:$81.1 million (vs. $95.4 million in Q3 2024)
- Self-mining revenue:$57.4 million, down year over year, with the company citing a 55% decrease in bitcoin mined, partially offset by a higher average bitcoin price
- Hosted mining revenue:$8.7 million, down year over year, consistent with the strategic shift away from hosted mining
- High-Density Colocation (HDC) revenue:$15.0 million, up from $10.3 million a year earlier, reflecting colocation expansion
- Capex:$244.5 million, with $196.4 million funded by CoreWeave under existing colocation service agreements
- Liquidity:$694.8 million, consisting of cash plus bitcoin as of quarter-end [10]
Two big takeaways investors tend to draw from this (and they’re worth stating plainly):
- HDC is growing, but it’s still not the majority of revenue yet. The pivot is real, but execution is still the story. [11]
- CoreWeave’s funding role is meaningful. Even with the merger dead, the commercial relationship continues to shape Core Scientific’s investment case. [12]
Wall Street forecasts for CORZ stock: big upside targets, big disagreement
Analyst forecasts on Core Scientific remain decidedly bullish on average, but with unusually wide dispersion—typical of a business that sits at the intersection of crypto commodity economics and AI infrastructure contracting.
Here are the major consensus snapshots investors are looking at today:
- MarketBeat (12-month targets): average around $22.39, with a low near $15.00 and a high around $34.00 (implying sizable upside from current levels if execution lands). [13]
- StockAnalysis (analyst consensus framing): shows a “Buy” consensus and highlights the same broad target range dynamics in its forecast coverage. [14]
- TipRanks (recent 3-month window): average price target about $28.09, with a $40 high forecast and roughly $19.94 low forecast; consensus rating shown as Strong Buy based on the tracked analyst set. [15]
- Nasdaq / Fintel aggregation: reported an average one-year target of $25.48, with a low of $15.15 and a high of $42.00, reflecting a sharp upward revision versus earlier estimates. [16]
What the price-target spread is really saying
When you see targets ranging from the mid-teens to $40+, it’s not analysts “being random.” It’s a sign the debate is about which business Core Scientific becomes over the next 12–24 months:
- A power-constrained crypto miner with earnings tied to bitcoin price, network difficulty, and energy costs
- Or a contracted AI colocation provider where long-duration agreements and capacity expansions drive more stable cash flows
Both narratives exist in the same corporate body right now—which is why CORZ can feel like it has two steering wheels.
Analyst notes that shaped sentiment into year-end 2025
After the merger rejection in October, some analysts became more aggressive about the standalone upside case.
For example, TipRanks/TheFly reported Roth Capital raised its price target to $40 (from $23.50) and reiterated a Buy, arguing that without the takeover, Core Scientific could “resume its standalone path” and restart customer discussions—while pointing to potential catalysts such as customer announcements, financing, new sites, and power expansions. [17]
That framing—“no merger, more optionality”—is still influencing how traders interpret every move in CORZ, including days like today when the stock simply gets swept into broader volatility.
Technical and trading signals: momentum looks weak in the short term
On Dec. 15, several technical dashboards are flashing caution:
- Investing.com’s technical summary shows “Strong Sell” signals across multiple shorter time frames (including daily), and it notes that its moving-average set is skewed heavily bearish in the short run. [18]
- TipRanks’ moving average readouts show a mixed picture: shorter-period averages leaning negative while longer-term measures can remain constructive—basically, “soft now, not necessarily broken forever.” [19]
This doesn’t “predict” the future by itself, but it helps explain why CORZ can drop hard on a Monday without any dramatic company-specific update: once momentum shifts, high-volatility names can get sold quickly.
What investors are watching next (the practical checklist)
Going into late December 2025 and early 2026, CORZ investors tend to focus on a handful of very specific catalysts—and risks:
Potential upside catalysts
- New high-density colocation customer announcements and expansions (especially those that diversify revenue beyond any single major counterparty) [20]
- Evidence the company can continue scaling HDC revenue meaningfully beyond the ~$15M quarterly level reported in Q3 [21]
- Financing and buildout updates that support capacity conversion plans without stressing the balance sheet [22]
Key risks
- Bitcoin volatility and network dynamics (hash rate changes) still matter materially to near-term results [23]
- Execution risk on facility conversion and delivering AI-ready infrastructure at scale [24]
- The market’s tendency to treat CORZ as a “high-beta blockchain stock” can amplify drawdowns in risk-off sessions [25]
Bottom line for Dec. 15: CORZ is still a “transition stock,” and the market prices transitions brutally
Core Scientific stock’s selloff on December 15, 2025 fits the pattern of a company in the middle of a strategic identity shift—from mining-heavy to AI-infrastructure-heavy—while still being traded day-to-day as part of the volatile blockchain equity complex. [26]
The bulls can point to growing colocation revenue, meaningful liquidity, and a strategy aimed at rapidly expanding high-density colocation. [27]
The skeptics can point to execution risk, short-term technical weakness, and the reality that the transformation isn’t complete yet. [28]
Either way, the stock is telling you something honest today: this is not a “sleep well and clip coupons” equity. It’s a narrative-and-execution stock, and it will keep moving like one.
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. www.marketbeat.com, 3. investors.corescientific.com, 4. investors.corescientific.com, 5. investors.corescientific.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. www.reuters.com, 8. www.reuters.com, 9. investors.corescientific.com, 10. investors.corescientific.com, 11. investors.corescientific.com, 12. investors.corescientific.com, 13. www.marketbeat.com, 14. stockanalysis.com, 15. www.tipranks.com, 16. www.nasdaq.com, 17. www.tipranks.com, 18. www.investing.com, 19. www.tipranks.com, 20. www.tipranks.com, 21. investors.corescientific.com, 22. www.tipranks.com, 23. investors.corescientific.com, 24. investors.corescientific.com, 25. www.marketbeat.com, 26. investors.corescientific.com, 27. investors.corescientific.com, 28. www.investing.com
