After signing the 6.6 billion yuan lease, is CLSK still a mining stock?

NEXT PICK · Market Insights

After signing the 6.6 billion yuan lease, is CLSK still a mining stock?

Monday, July 20, 2026

A company still mining Bitcoin on its books posted a net loss approaching $380 million in a single quarter. Its latest earnings report showed a loss of $1.52 per share, far below market expectations, yet its stock price bucked the trend and surged 10.67% today, closing at $14.42.

With a market cap of $3.7 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio distorted by losses, and a beta as high as 3.84—why is capital rushing in instead despite such a financial snapshot?

The answer isn't in the mining business, but in a newly signed $6.6 billion data center lease for twenty years. Is today's unusual movement a fundamental turning point, or is it yet another capital game chasing the AI concept?

Latest price $14.42 ▲ +10.67%

20-year lease $6.6 billion ▲ Up to $11.6 billion

Market capitalization $3.7 billion — P/S ratio is about 4.8 times

A Bitcoin mining company is transforming itself into a "power leasing company" in the AI era

Headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, CleanSpark's main business is Bitcoin mining: self-built, self-operated data centers and power assets, using computing power to exchange for Bitcoin as a digital commodity. As of June 2025, it will become the first publicly traded company to reach 50 EH/s hash rate using only U.S. domestic infrastructure.

FY2025 full-year revenue is about $766 million, doubling year-on-year, with a gross margin of about 55% and a net profit of $364.5 million on paper, successfully turning losses around—a report card that looks so good it hardly resembles a miner.

But behind the beauty lies dramatic quarterly fluctuations

In fiscal year 2025, one quarter saw a net profit of $257.4 million, while another saw a huge loss of $378.7 million—a difference of over $600 million. Such profits come less from operations and more from the ebb and flow of Bitcoin's price.

What truly made the market reprice it is transformation. The company is transforming its Sandersville, Georgia campus into a high-performance computing (HPC) and AI data center, and is targeting large power sites across Texas. In other words, it wants to shift from being a "miner mining" to a "landlord renting out data centers and electricity to AI giants"—do you think the market should value these two businesses equally?

By mining stock, it's not expensive; by data center, it's not cheap

Let's start with a number that's easily misinterpreted. Based on FY2025 revenue of $766 million and a market cap of $3.7 billion, the price-to-sales ratio (P/S) is about 4.8 times—high among pure mining peers, but considered central among data center REITs (usually 3 to 6 times), not outrageous.

The problem lies in the quality of profits. The price-to-earnings ratio has been completely distorted by a loss of $2.08 per share over the past twelve months, with negative return on equity and negative free cash flow: FY2025 free cash flow was about -$461 million, nearly double the previous year's -$234 million.

Doubling income and burning money is a classic "expansion trap"—for every extra dollar earned, more than one dollar of capital expenditure is added up. In the most recent quarter, operating cash flow has flowed out hundreds of millions of dollars, mainly invested in HPC data center construction and equipment.

So why would the market still be willing to value it as a central hub? Because what they bet on isn't today's cash flow, but what will happen after the twenty-year lease is fulfilled. But what if Bitcoin drops again, or if lease deliveries are repeatedly delayed? This valuation safety cushion is actually thinner than the numbers appear.

The story has already begun, but the income hasn't materialized yet

To sum up CLSK's current position in one sentence: the transformation has begun, but validation is not yet complete. The $6.6 billion lease was signed in black and white, but according to disclosures, data center deliveries will not begin until the fourth quarter of 2027, meaning this money will hardly appear in financial reports for the next year or so.

Currently, the main source of income is still mining, which fluctuates with coin prices; The recurring revenue contributed by HPCs still remains at the "contract amount" rather than the "receipt amount."

From a technical perspective, the $14.42 price is stuck below the 50-day moving average ($15.24) and above the 200-day moving average ($13.29)—the market neither dares to completely deny this story nor is it ready to fully reprice it. This oscillation sandwiched between two moving averages is precisely the most authentic ECG during the "pre-breakout" phase.

On the same track, he is the third to secure a spot

Miners collectively transforming into AI data centers is now a narrative for an entire sector. CLSK is not alone, nor is it the very first to lead.

The leader in the sector is IREN—just today, it raised its annual recurring revenue (ARR) target to over $4 billion, with top brands like Microsoft, Nvidia, and Perplexity among its clients. Its stock price surged nearly 20% in a single day, which also set the mood for the entire miner transformation sector on fire. Hut 8 followed closely by signing a fifteen-year, nearly $10 billion AI data center lease, surpassing CLSK's $6.6 billion in scale. Smaller firms like Cipher and TeraWulf, which pursues a clean energy route, are positioned similarly to CLSK.

CLSK's card is that exclusive twenty-year long-term contract, plus a 718-acre Texas site reserve with a planned power capacity of up to 885 MW. The key words for the moat boil down to two things: electricity cost and contract lock-up period.

But you have to ask, does it have any technical barriers? Almost none—mining algorithms are open-source, mining machines are purchased externally, and data centers are general technologies. What it truly retains are "electricity" and "customers who have signed for twenty years." But when the contracts in the hands of peers grow larger and larger, how many major clients are left for the newcomers?

The ceiling is high enough, but how big the piece can be allocated is another matter

The track itself is full of room for imagination. Third-party organizations predict that the global AI infrastructure market size is expected to grow from about $50 billion in 2024 to $300–500 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 30%, with HPC data centers being one of the fastest-growing segments.

For CLSK, the main market it can serve is the HPC demand in North America. According to industry experience, 1 MW of data center capacity roughly corresponds to an annual revenue of one to two tens of millions of dollars. Its first lease of 175 MW, combined with Texas's highest planned capacity of 885 MW, makes the theoretical revenue ceiling quite substantial.

But a high ceiling doesn't mean you can reach that spot. IREN has locked in $4 billion in ARR and signed nearly $10 billion in contracts with Hut 8. There are only a handful of major clients, and every time a rival signs one, CLSK's access pool shrinks. Within three to five years, whether it can truly convert the electricity from the Texas site into contracted revenue will be the key to determining "how much of the share to receive."

The bulls are looking at that 20-year definite contract

Supporting the logic of going long is a long-term contract that transforms from a concept into black and white, and it fundamentally transforms the business model:

▲ Bull Case

Bears are watching burning, volatility, and opponents who have already positioned themselves

The short-selling logic is equally solid; it focuses not on the story itself, but on the triple risks before the story materializes:

▼ Bear Case

Delivery timing, Dezhou landing, and the next financial report—whoever delivers first will have the say

In the short term, CLSK's stock price will be dominated by several factors that will determine whether this transformation story accelerates or dies off:

•	Q4 2027: Sandersville first batch of 175 MW data center delivered, lease revenue begins billing (impact: relatively high)
•	Exclusive rights to the 718-acre site in Texas officially converted into contract and developed (impact: relatively high)
•	The next quarterly financial report will separately disclose HPC revenue share and construction progress for the first time (impact: neutral to critical)
•	Bitcoin Price Direction—Determining Whether Transitional Mining Revenue Can Support the Fundamentals (Impact: Two-Way Approach)

From crypto betas to AI narratives, its stock price has always told someone else's story

CLSK's stock price history is almost like a history of "following hot topics." During the 2020-2021 crypto bull market, it soared alongside Bitcoin to its all-time high, multiplying the price, driven purely by price and not by its own alpha.

During the bear markets of 2022-2023, coin prices were halved again and again, with the industry pulling back by more than 80%—but it was precisely during these downturns that companies began consolidating assets and preparing infrastructure for transformation.

From 2024 to the present, AI narratives take over. The stock price once reached above $50 amid speculation on the HPC concept and sector, but then fell back and consolidated after two consecutive quarters of massive losses. Currently, the $14.42 price is stuck in a gap where the "AI narrative" is fading and "contract fulfillment" has yet to begin. This time, whether the market is willing to pay for it depends on whether the story can truly come to light for the first time.

⚠️ Risk Notice • Free cash flow remains negative, cash burning accelerates, and external financing may be needed within a year, with high risk of equity dilution • The recent quarter saw huge losses, profits fluctuated sharply with coin prices, and historical valuation models basically failed • Lease income will not be delivered until the end of 2027, and any delay or shrinkage in between, the stock price will be revalued • The identity of the high-investment grade tenant has not been disclosed, and the exclusivity and timing of contract enforcement remain uncertain • The beta reached as high as 3.84, and the stock price has a strong amplifying effect on market sentiment and coin prices

🟡 Neutral The positive news is real, but it will take two years to materialize. Right now, it's sentiment that's rising, not earnings.

💬 Discussion The skin of mining stocks, the data center bet—their current real-time buy and sell positions, posted on CLSK's official WeChat account.

Data source

•	Source: NextPick real-time snapshot + CleanSpark earnings report and SEC 8-K announcement + mainstream financial media public coverage. Data is cross-verified, and specific signals and buy and sell positions are subject to real-time push notifications from the official account.