IREN stock surges 25.44% as investors refocus on $2.8 billion AI cloud contracts

Bitcoin mining stocks jumped on Thursday as Bitcoin traded near $64,856, lifting sentiment across the sector and helping names such as Terawulf, MARA, American Bitcoin Corp and IREN post double-digit gains. IREN led the move, rising about 25%, after Co-founder and Co-CEO Daniel Roberts reiterated strong demand for the company’s AI compute capacity and said about 85% of its more than $4 billion annualized 2026 revenue target is already backed by signed contracts. Terawulf rose 17.06% to $17.67 ahead of its second-quarter 2026 earnings report scheduled for August 5, while MARA gained 17.01% to $11.76 before its August 6 results. American Bitcoin Corp advanced 11.08% to $5.77 as its shares tracked Bitcoin’s move toward the $64,500-$65,000 range, though the stock has also been weighed by a 1-for-15 reverse stock split earlier this month. IREN climbed 25.32% to $36.73, rebounding after a roughly 33% decline over the past month amid broader weakness in crypto miner shares. Investor attention on IREN has remained centered on its AI cloud expansion. On July 30, Roberts said demand for the company’s capacity exceeds everything it can currently build and that construction crews are active across its sites. The rebound extended momentum from $2.8 billion in AI cloud contracts IREN signed earlier in July with Microsoft, NVIDIA, Perplexity, and Figure AI. Several of the newer multi-year deals include customer prepayments that cover roughly 45% of the related GPU capital costs, helping ease concerns about how the company will finance its buildout. Trading volume in the rebound reached nearly 73 million shares, above IREN’s roughly 53 million average, suggesting short covering may have added to the move alongside the contract news. Whether the rally can hold may depend on how IREN converts its contracted revenue into cash flow as it advances toward its 1.2 gigawatt capacity target for 2027.