New York, Jan 6, 2026, 19:15 EST — After-hours
- IREN shares fell about 5% after a sharp two-day swing.
- The stock has traded as a hybrid bet on bitcoin prices and AI data-center demand.
- Traders are watching crypto moves, CES read-throughs, and the next earnings date.
IREN Ltd shares fell 4.8% to $45.91 in after-hours trading on Tuesday, giving back part of the prior session’s sharp rally.
The slide followed a volatile start to 2026 for the Nasdaq-listed company, which had closed at $48.24 on Monday after a roughly 13% jump, data and market commentary showed. 1
The moves matter now because investors are treating IREN as a high-beta proxy for two themes that have driven price action this week: bitcoin and demand for AI computing capacity. At CES in Las Vegas, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company’s next-generation “Rubin” platform was “in full production,” a headline that has rippled through the AI infrastructure trade. 2
Bitcoin was last down 0.2% at about $93,533, after swinging between roughly $91,409 and $94,346 over the past day. Other U.S.-listed bitcoin miners were mixed, with Marathon Digital and CleanSpark down about 2% while Riot Platforms and Core Scientific edged up.
IREN, which started as a bitcoin miner, has been repositioning itself as a provider of power-backed data-center capacity for AI workloads. Microsoft signed a $9.7 billion, five-year contract with IREN late last year to secure access to Nvidia chips, Reuters reported, with deployments planned in phases through 2026 and termination rights if delivery schedules slip. 3
Wall Street has also been re-rating the broader “GPU data center” theme, with Applied Digital among the names investors track for comparable exposure to long-term contracts and large power pipelines, a Nasdaq.com analysis published this week said. Nvidia shares slipped 0.5% on Tuesday. 4
But IREN’s sharp swings underline the downside case: a bitcoin pullback can hit miners quickly, while the AI pivot depends on funding and execution at scale, leaving little room for delays when customers want capacity on fixed timelines.
Next up, investors will watch whether inflation data resets risk appetite — the U.S. CPI report is scheduled for Jan. 13 — and the market’s next read on IREN’s fundamentals around its mid-February earnings window, with some data providers pointing to Feb. 11. 5
