NEW YORK, June 24, 2026, 16:01 (EDT)
- IREN shares last changed hands at $49.51, down 9.5%. The drop was steeper than CoreWeave, Core Scientific or TeraWulf.
- Bitcoin hovered around $59,830 after dropping under $60,000, holding down crypto-related shares.
- IREN is betting on major projects with Microsoft, Nvidia, and Dell for its AI cloud push, though hitting revenue targets comes down to chip shipments and getting things running.
IREN Limited ended Wednesday’s session down 9.5% at $49.51, holding close to the day’s low of $48.85. The shares traded as high as $55.70 earlier. IREN underperformed other AI, data center, and crypto-linked stocks on the Nasdaq. CoreWeave fell 5.4%, Core Scientific slipped 6.0%, and TeraWulf dropped 7.6%.
Bitcoin dropped 4.1% to around $59,830, a key source of revenue for IREN. The price slipped under $60,000 again Wednesday as crypto losses mounted, according to CoinDesk.
IREN was hit Wednesday after Investing.com reported a split among analysts on the company’s speed in moving from Bitcoin mining to AI cloud infrastructure. Analysts’ price targets ranged from $36 to $100. In its March-quarter update, IREN said revenue slid to $144.8 million from $184.7 million in the previous quarter, as Bitcoin prices dropped and the company shut down mining hardware ahead of installing AI chips and starting billing.
Nasdaq slides as AI spending questions hit chip stocks
AI spending concerns hit the broader market, not just IREN. Reuters said Tuesday the Nasdaq dropped 2.21% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled 7.9% after investors questioned the rush of debt-backed AI spending. “All the spending that’s being done” is raising new doubts, Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt, told Reuters. Reuters
IREN runs data centers in Australia that use renewable energy, Reuters reports. The company’s sites are mainly for Bitcoin mining, AI cloud, and other computing jobs that demand a lot of power.
IREN wants to shift its image from miner to AI cloud partner. Microsoft agreed to a $9.7 billion deal over five years to access Nvidia GB300 chips, Reuters said in November. The deal gives Microsoft an out if IREN doesn’t meet chip delivery deadlines.
Nvidia in May struck its own deal for the right to buy as many as 30 million IREN shares at $70 apiece, a package worth up to $2.1 billion. Reuters reported the tie-up aims for as much as 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure, a standard scale for major data center work.
IREN will buy about $1.6 billion of Nvidia Blackwell systems from Dell as part of its $3.4 billion Nvidia AI cloud deal. The systems should be in place at Childress, Texas, by early 2027. IREN said that ARR, or annualized run-rate revenue, could increase to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion.
IREN said in its June 15 investor update that it has closed the purchase of Nostrum Group in Spain. The deal brings about 490 megawatts of grid-connected power and over 50 employees onto IREN’s roster. Nostrum CEO Gabriel Nebreda said the company built a Spanish AI infrastructure pipeline over several years and now has the resources to develop it “at the speed and scale” needed. IREN
IREN is moving into Australia, too. The company said in a June 3 statement it has signed a transmission connection agreement for an 800-megawatt data-center campus planned for Bundey, South Australia. IREN expects it to go live from 2028. “Abundant clean energy” and connections to Asia-Pacific make the state attractive, Co-CEO Daniel Roberts said. GlobeNewswire
Delays are possible. IREN said its $4.4 billion ARR goal isn’t fully contracted yet, there’s no guarantee it will hit it, and final revenue could end up very different. The target relies on graphics processing units, or GPUs, showing up and going live as planned. A drop in Bitcoin price would cause more pressure, especially before AI cloud sales can cover lost mining income.
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