Hut 8 Craters 11% Despite a $19.6B Beacon Point Backlog, TeraWulf Falls 5%, IREN Drops 3%: What’s Pressuring These AI Miner Stocks?
Quick Read
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Hut 8 and TeraWulf's Friday declines mirror their 2026 gains exactly, with profit-taking driving the sell-off rather than any contract or economic reassessment.
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DTCR's 0.6% dip versus double-digit miner losses confirms traders are rotating out of high-beta AI infrastructure plays, not repricing sector demand.
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Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Hut 8 didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Friday's selling in AI-pivoting Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) miners tracks their 2026 gains almost perfectly, a signature of profit-taking and position unwinding rather than a reassessment of any company's contracts or economics. Hut 8 (NASDAQ:HUT) stock is down 11% to $78.54 in Friday morning trading, the group's worst decliner despite carrying the largest signed AI data center backlog among former miners. There's no same-day announcement behind the move.
Meanwhile, TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF) stock is sliding 5% to $15.58, a more moderate drop mirroring its smaller year-to-date advance. Also lower, IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) stock is falling 3% to $41.20, the mildest decline and consistent with its slimmer 2026 gain.
At the same time, the Global X Data Center and Digital Infrastructure ETF (NASDAQ:DTCR) is down 0.6% to $28.30, barely moving relative to the miners inside the broader theme. That gap tells the story: broad demand for AI data center capacity isn't what traders are selling this morning.
Selling Tracks the Year's Biggest Winners
Rank the three miners by 2026 performance and by Friday's loss and the order is identical. Hut 8 stock is up 93% year to date through Thursday's close and down the most today. TeraWulf stock is up 43% year to date through Thursday's close, and its Friday drop is smaller. IREN stock is up 13% year to date through Thursday's close, and its decline is the shallowest.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Hut 8 didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
That proportionality signals profit-taking, not a re-underwriting of long-duration contracts or unit economics. What's being unwound is the specific bet that former Bitcoin miners can convert scarce power and shell space into AI tenancy, a bet that repriced violently upward earlier this year.
Full-chain options positioning still leans bullish across the group, with Hut 8's put-call ratio at 0.45, TeraWulf's at 0.37, and IREN's at 0.34. Traders sitting on sizable call exposure have every incentive to trim as the year's gains compress.