NEW YORK, March 12, 2026, 7:27 p.m. EDT
Cipher Digital slipped 2.8% to $13.71 in late Thursday action, pressured after Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut its price target to $20 from $22. The stock’s recent moves have hinged more on its AI-focused data-center expansion than its older mining operations.
Why does this shift count now? Cipher wants out from its bitcoin miner label. In filings last month, the company dropped “Mining” from its name and announced plans for 600 megawatts of high-performance computing data-center capacity—HPC aimed at AI and other heavy-duty computing—on top of a 4.2-gigawatt pipeline spread across 10 sites. SEC
Cipher reported its fourth-quarter numbers on Feb. 24: revenue came in at $60 million, with an adjusted net loss of $55 million. Total bond proceeds for Barber Lake and Black Pearl hit $3.73 billion. Chief Executive Tyler Page called 2026 “a year of execution for Cipher,” and said both projects are still on track. SEC
Stephen Glagola at KBW trimmed his 2026 and 2027 revenue and EBITDA forecasts, pointing to a drop in hash price, Cipher’s planned bitcoin mining exit in 2027, and elevated spend. Still, the firm kept Cipher at Outperform, arguing that investors might be underestimating both the value of current leases and what 2026 leasing could bring.
The debate has grown heated because of Cipher’s own forecasts. According to the company, its 300 MW AWS lease at Black Pearl and another 300 MW Fluidstack/Google deal at Barber Lake together represent around $9.3 billion in contracted revenue. Cipher projects average annualized NOI—net operating income—of roughly $669 million over the initial terms, with leases scheduled to kick in starting October 2026.
Cipher’s been trimming its legacy mining operations. According to company materials, it offloaded its stakes in the Alborz, Bear, and Chief joint ventures, pulled Black Pearl rigs for either sale or redeployment, and slashed its operating hash rate to around 11.6 EH/s from about 23.6 EH/s in the fourth quarter.
Cipher ended Thursday behind a varied set of peers. Marathon Digital tacked on 2.6%. Riot Platforms dropped 2.1%, Core Scientific slipped 1.8%. Bitcoin, meanwhile, edged up roughly 0.3% to trade near $70,558.
Execution is the sticking point here. In its annual report, Cipher flagged the challenges tied to expanding further into HPC: tougher rivals, unfamiliar tenants, and hefty capital requirements. The company cautioned that profitability is far from guaranteed; on top of that, changes to Texas grid and interconnection rules could ratchet up costs or stall projects.
Related articles: NASDAQ:CIFR
