New York, Feb 27, 2026, 19:30 EST — After-hours
- IREN shares finished Friday 7.4% lower, sliding further in after-hours trading.
- IREN shares slipped, just as the company’s inclusion in the MSCI USA Index was scheduled to kick in after the close.
- Bitcoin’s back in the spotlight, and so is sentiment around AI infrastructure as next week approaches.
Shares of IREN Limited (IREN.O) slid 7.4% to $40.95 on Friday. After-hours, the stock edged down another 0.6%. Roughly 50.5 million shares traded hands, based on exchange-delayed figures.
Traders took note of the timing—index changes trigger forced flows, not just sentiment. The news also arrived as the market grows jittery over expensive AI projects and anything linked to bitcoin.
Earlier this month, IREN announced its upcoming inclusion in the MSCI USA Index, set to take effect after the market closes on Feb. 27. “Being added to the MSCI USA Index reflects the scale and liquidity we have built in the business,” co-CEO Daniel Roberts said in the statement. GlobeNewswire
Bitcoin slipped nearly 2%, last quoted near $65,900. Moves like this tend to ripple into crypto-linked stocks.
U.S. stocks slipped Friday, with Nvidia dropping 3.5% while the S&P 500 lost 0.43%. “Now it’s time for a breather,” said Talley Leger, chief market strategist at The Wealth Consulting Group. Reuters
AI infrastructure stocks took a beating. CoreWeave dropped roughly 15% after its announcement to double capex to $30 billion–$35 billion rattled investors, who started questioning both how the firm will finance such a big expansion and whether the returns will justify it. “They are concerned about the long-term economics and how the company plans to fund the investment,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. Reuters
IREN finds itself in the middle of both trends. The company markets itself as both a bitcoin miner and a data-center operator for AI tasks, and has landed a five-year, $9.7 billion cloud agreement with Microsoft—Nvidia chips included. Reuters has noted the contract allows for cancellation if delivery deadlines aren’t met.
Fresh research cuts to the chase: bitcoin miners are angling to reinvent themselves as landlords for high-performance computing—the backbone behind AI training and inference. S&P Global Market Intelligence, pointing to Visible Alpha consensus numbers, sees IREN’s HPC revenue surging as a percentage of total income by 2026.
Other players are following suit. On Feb. 26, MARA announced a partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures to launch a platform targeting roughly 1 gigawatt of short-term IT capacity—with ambitions to scale beyond 2.5 gigawatts. The deal highlights just how aggressively miners are moving into AI-related revenue.
Still, the same risks linger. A sharp drop in bitcoin, and the mining business could shrink in a hurry. AI operations, on the other hand, need cash upfront and reliable funding streams. Index-driven inflows? Those can vanish as suddenly as they show up.
Investors are zeroing in on Monday’s first full trading day after the MSCI adjustment, scanning for action in crypto-related stocks. Also on the radar: a March 4 White House sit-down with top data center and AI firms, centering on consumer protections from surging electricity bills—a policy wildcard for heavyweight power users across the industry.
