Bitcoin Miner TeraWulf's Stock Surges as Google Ups Its Stake in the Company

In brief

Google has increased its pro forma stake in the Bitcoin miner to 14%.
The firm last week signed a deal to expand its AI data center capacity.
Its stock is booming as a result.

Terawulf stock (NASDAQ: WULF) surged more than 12% Monday after the Bitcoin miner said it was expanding and that Google was upping its stake in the company.

The Easton, Maryland-based firm said that Google will provide an incremental $1.4 billion backstop to support project-related debt financing, bringing its total stake to $3.2 billion. In exchange, Google will receive warrants to buy 32.5 million shares of the sustainable Bitcoin miner.

The latest agreement increases the tech giant’s pro forma equity stake to 14% from a previously announced 8% share.

Terawulf will also build a new data center, dubbed CB-5, with help from AI cloud platform Fluidstack. Terawulf last week signed two 10-year computing deals with AI cloud provider Fluidstack to offer more than 200 megawatts of capacity at its Lake Mariner datacenter space.

WULF was recently trading at $10.06 per share Monday morning Eastern Time, according to Yahoo Finance. Over the past week, the stock is up by nearly 86%.

“By adding CB-5, we are not only increasing our contracted capacity with Fluidstack, but also further deepening our strategic alignment with Google as a critical financial partner in delivering the next generation of AI infrastructure,” Terawulf CEO Paul Prager said in a statement.

Terrawulf is a Bitcoin miner that also works in the AI space. Both crypto mining and the AI space use huge amounts of energy; when BTC’s price falls and minting new digital coins isn’t generating enough revenue, some miners have pivoted their infrastructure to address AI demand. Two firms, BitMine Immersion and Bit Digital have shifted their focus entirely to create Ethereum treasuries.

Experts previously told Decrypt that the AI business isn’t necessarily easy for Bitcoin miners to pivot because it requires different infrastructure and various adjustments in technology.

Bitcoin’s price was trading 2% lower Monday at $115,592 per coin. Last week, the leading cryptocurrency hit a new high of $124,128, according to digital asset data provider CoinGecko.