Blockspace: IREN’s Nvidia Partnership and 5 GW Plan, Hut 8’s $9.7B Hyperscaler Deal, Strategy May Sell BTC to Own the Short Sellers

The BlockSpace Live episode dives deep into the accelerating AI pivot among Bitcoin miners, highlighting major deals and earnings reports from industry leaders. Iron (IRON) announced a $3.4 billion partnership with NVIDIA for 60 megawatts of air-cooled Blackwell platforms, backed by a $2.1 billion equity warrant, and plans to scale to 150,000 GPUs by 2026. The company also acquired Mirantis to strengthen its software stack and reported a full pivot from Bitcoin mining to AI, with AI revenue now offsetting lost mining income. Hut 8 sealed a $9.8 billion 15-year lease with an undisclosed hyperscaler for 352 megawatts at its Beacon Point campus, bringing its total contracted AI capacity to 597 megawatts and $16.8 billion in value. Meanwhile, Luxor’s April Hash Rate Lookback revealed a structural decline in network hash rate despite improving mining economics, suggesting miners are permanently exiting rather than temporarily offline. The episode also covers MicroStrategy’s controversial announcement that Michael Saylor may sell Bitcoin to send a message to short sellers, sparking debate over the company’s financial strategy and risk profile. Other miners like TerraWolf, Core Scientific, and Cypher Digital reported strong AI revenue growth and new hyperscaler deals, though Core Scientific’s stock dropped after no new deal was announced. Overall, the show underscores a seismic shift: Bitcoin miners are no longer just mining Bitcoin—they are becoming AI infrastructure powerhouses.