Riot sells 1,080 BTC to buy Rockdale land; signs $311M, 10‑yr AMD data‑center lease (25 MW, expandable)

Riot Platforms sold about 1,080 BTC from its treasury to fund a $96 million purchase of 200 acres at its Rockdale, Texas campus and announced a 10‑year data‑center lease with AMD worth roughly $311 million initially. Under the initial phase AMD will lease 25 MW of critical IT load in stages from this month through May; the contract includes three optional five‑year renewals that could push total value toward $1 billion. AMD also holds rights to expand by 75 MW and a right of first refusal on another 100 MW, enabling potential total leased capacity of up to 200 MW. Riot expects retrofit capex of about $89.8 million for the first AMD deployment (≈ $3.6M per MW) and forecasts average net operating income of roughly $25 million per year once operational. The Rockdale site offers 700 MW grid interconnection, water and fiber; combined with Riot’s Corsicana site the company controls over 1,100 acres and 1.7 GW of power capacity in Texas. The move continues Riot’s strategy of diversifying away from pure Bitcoin mining toward AI and high‑performance computing (HPC) and contracted data‑center services, a pivot that has drawn strong investor response (shares rose double digits). For traders: the sale reduced Riot’s on‑balance BTC by ~1,080 coins (funding the land buy); the deal creates predictable, contracted revenue and clearly signals an operational shift that may alter Riot’s sensitivity to Bitcoin price swings over time.