Miners Beat Bitcoin in 2026 as Terawulf Secures $12.8B AI/HPC Deals

Bitcoin mining stocks are sharply outperforming BTC in 2026, in what the article frames as “miners beat bitcoin” despite BTC hovering near $76,000–$78,000 (about -12% since Jan 1). In the top ten publicly listed miners, YTD gains range roughly 25%–73% while bitcoin is in the red. The driver is not traditional mining economics. The winners are repositioning as AI infrastructure and HPC data-center operators by locking contracted high-performance computing (HPC) revenue through long-term hyperscaler agreements. The story’s core point is that “miners beat bitcoin” because the market is pricing in contracted backlog, delivery timelines and counterparty quality, not just power capacity. Terawulf (WULF) leads with +73.58% YTD after securing $12.8B+ in contracted HPC revenue via long-term deals anchored by Google-backed Fluidstack and Core42, targeting sites scaling toward ~1 GW of available power. Hut 8 (HUT) follows with +67.75% YTD after a $7B, 15-year lease at River Bend with Anthropic and Fluidstack. Core Scientific (CORZ) is up (40%+ region) on roughly $10–12B contracted revenue tied to Coreweave partnerships spanning 590 MW, including a $1.2B expansion in Denton, Texas. Applied Digital (APLD) has signed multiple 15-year Coreweave leases for 400 MW, cited as generating ~$11B contracted revenue. Other names highlighted: IREN (projected HPC share ~71% of revenue by year-end), Cipher Digital (CIFR) shifting away from most BTC mining toward a ~$9.3B HPC backlog, and Riot (RIOT) +47.04% with AI-ready capacity underway. Bitdeer (BTDR) trails at +7.62% YTD, and Cleanspark (CLSK) is +25.88% but with initial AI deployments pushed into 2026–2027. Overall: “miners beat bitcoin” in 2026 as AI/HPC contracted revenue becomes the key valuation catalyst for leading miners.