Bernstein: The sharp decline of IREN reflects the market's disappointment over the failure to reach an AI agreement, and Bitcoin is no longer at the core of its investments

According to The Block, research firm Bernstein analyzed that the stock price of IREN, a Bitcoin mining company transitioning to AI computing services, fell sharply after releasing its financial report. The main reason was market disappointment over the lack of new large AI partnership announcements, rather than a deterioration in fundamentals.

The company's stock price dropped about 18% after the earnings report, to approximately $39.79. Bernstein analysts believe that the volatility of Bitcoin-related earnings is no longer the core investment logic for IREN, and investors are more focused on its progress in transitioning to AI cloud infrastructure. Although IREN's Bitcoin mining revenue decreased quarter-over-quarter this quarter, its AI cloud revenue more than doubled compared to the previous quarter. The company has secured approximately $2.3 billion in annual recurring revenue contracts for AI cloud services and expects this to grow to $3.4 billion by the fourth quarter of 2026, equivalent to deploying about 140,000 GPUs.

Bernstein maintains an "outperform" rating on IREN with a target price of $125, viewing this decline as a reset of expectations rather than a signal of deteriorating execution capability.