Hut 8 swings to Q4 loss; compute revenue contribution increases

Hut 8 (HUT) reported a fourth-quarter net loss Wednesday of $279.7 million, from income of $152.2 million a year earlier.

Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 was $88.5 million, compared with $31.7 million in the same period a year earlier.

In its earnings report released Wednesday, Hut 8 said compute revenue for the three-month period totaled $81.9 million, up from $19.2 million a year earlier. The company did not disclose quarterly Bitcoin (BTC) production or sales figures.

Operating results were affected by a $401.9 million loss on digital assets in the quarter, compared with a $308.2 million increase a year earlier.

Hut 8 said it ended the year with about $1.4 billion in cash and Bitcoin reserves and up to $400 million in revolving credit capacity.

During the quarter, the company signed a 15-year lease for 245 megawatts of AI data center capacity at its River Bend campus valued at $7 billion. The agreement includes payments financially backstopped by Google and builds on Hut 8’s broader expansion into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

The company also completed the sale of a 310 MW natural gas portfolio in February and said it launched American Bitcoin Corp. as a separately listed vehicle focused on Bitcoin accumulation.

According to BitcoinTreasuries.NET data, Hut 8 holds 13,696 BTC, ranking it among the larger public Bitcoin holders. Shares were down about 4.5% at last look in Wednesday morning trading. Industry tracker CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI) was up less than 1%.

Top 10 Bitcoin treasury companies. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET

Related: Solo Bitcoin miner bags over $200K block reward using rented hashrate

AI and infrastructure initiatives stoke mining stocks gains

Even as Bitcoin has fallen to about $68,150 from about $87,500 at the start of the year, per CoinGecko data, shares of most of the biggest publicly traded Bitcoin miners by market capitalization have posted year-to-date gains. 

TeraWulf is up more than 50% this year, while Riot Platforms and Hut 8 have advanced about 30% and 29%, respectively, according to data from BitcoinMiningStock.io. 

Top 10 Bitcoin mining stocks by market cap. Source: Bitcoinminingstock.io

The divergence suggests investors may be valuing miners not solely on Bitcoin price exposure, but increasingly on their energy infrastructure and data center strategies.

In August, TeraWulf signed 10-year colocation leases with AI infrastructure provider Fluidstack valued at $3.7 billion. Google is backing about $1.8 billion of the lease obligations and providing debt financing, receiving warrants for about 41 million WULF shares, or about 8% of the company.

Last week, activist investor Starboard Value urged Riot Platforms to speed up its push into high-performance computing and AI data centers, saying Texas-based development could unlock $9 billion to $21 billion in equity value. Starboard holds about 12.7 million Riot shares.

Other miners are also repositioning toward AI-linked infrastructure. CleanSpark, Core Scientific, HIVE Digital and MARA Holdings have repurposed portions of their infrastructure or outlined similar AI and high-performance computing initiatives. 

Cango said it sold $305 million worth of Bitcoin on Feb. 9, in part to finance its planned expansion into AI and HPC.

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