CoreWeave’s $20.40 Bid for Core Scientific Secures AI Scale

CoreWeave has agreed to acquire Core Scientific in a $9 billion all-stock bid, offering 0.1235 CoreWeave shares per CORZ share at $20.40 each. The transaction — expected to close in Q4 2025 — eliminates over $10 billion in lease obligations and unlocks about $500 million in annual savings by 2027. At a 16x 2026 EBITDA multiple, the all-stock bid trades at a significant discount to data center peers. CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator is pivoting the firm from crypto mining to AI and high-performance computing. While KBW analysts label the cash-free deal as opportunistic and foresee potential shareholder pushback, the lack of competing offers suggests the merger will proceed. This merger scales CoreWeave’s AI infrastructure amid rising data center power demand and AWS’s planned $100 billion AI spend in 2025.
Neutral
This corporate all-stock bid primarily strengthens AI and HPC capacity rather than expanding crypto mining operations. While eliminating lease obligations and unlocking cost savings support CoreWeave’s growth, the pivot away from mining introduces uncertainty for crypto revenue streams. There is no direct impact on Bitcoin’s supply or price dynamics, leading to a neutral market outlook in both the short and long term.