TeraWulf signs $19B Anthropic lease to pivot from crypto to AI
Bitcoin miner TeraWulf has secured a $19 billion, 20-year lease with Anthropic, pivoting its power infrastructure toward artificial intelligence and escaping the margin compression of cryptocurrency mining.
TeraWulf has signed a 20-year lease agreement with AI developer Anthropic worth an estimated $19 billion, pivoting its energy infrastructure from cryptocurrency mining to high-performance computing. The deal centers on the company's wholly owned Justified Data campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, a facility designed for a 401-megawatt critical IT load.
The scale of the Kentucky site dwarfs traditional enterprise data centers, which typically operate between 10 and 50 megawatts. Management expects to bring the initial capacity online in the second half of 2027, with a full ramp to 401 megawatts by early 2028.
To fund the construction without diluting shareholders or adding to a balance sheet that already carries a 33.00 debt-to-equity ratio, TeraWulf sold its 50.1% stake in the Abernathy Joint Venture. A Fluidstack-led investor group paid $450 million for the 168-megawatt Texas facility, a premium to TeraWulf's initial capital investment. This divestiture eliminates joint-venture accounting constraints and provides non-dilutive capital for the Kentucky buildout.
The financial rationale for abandoning crypto mining is straightforward. High-performance computing workloads generate roughly $149,000 per megawatt month, compared to $87,000 for conventional mining. TeraWulf's recent first-quarter 2026 earnings miss and negative trailing net margins highlighted the structural vulnerabilities of relying on volatile block rewards and network halvings.
Securing a two-decade contract with Anthropic replaces that unpredictability with utility-grade yield. Other miners like Core Scientific and Iris Energy are attempting similar transitions, but the contracted dollar value of the Anthropic deal separates TeraWulf from its peers. The shift also sets up a potentially volatile dynamic in the equity market.
Institutional investors have accumulated a 62.49% stake over the past year, with inflows of $991.36 million dwarfing outflows of $305.12 million. However, short sellers still hold 108.7 million shares, representing 28% of the available float and a 4.1 days-to-cover ratio. Bearish bets were built on expectations of continued margin compression and debt distress from legacy mining operations.
The realization of $19 billion in contracted AI revenue forces a fundamental reassessment of that bear thesis. This dynamic creates conditions for a short squeeze as the stock trades at $21.97, near its 52-week high of $29.84. Insider moves suggest confidence in the timeline, with CEO Paul Prager establishing a structured trading plan and Director Walter E. Carter receiving a stock retainer grant.
The 19-analyst consensus rates the stock a moderate buy with a $34.25 price target. However, execution risk remains, and investors will likely monitor upcoming earnings to confirm the Abernathy capital is efficiently deploying into the Kentucky site.
