JPMorgan, Citi upgrade Riot Platforms on AI shift
Wall Street notes Riot’s pivot to high-performance computing while downgrading IREN and CleanSpark amid miner shake-up
Skorzewiak/Shutterstock and Adobe modified by Blockworks
Riot Platforms, a Texas-based company best known for running one of the largest bitcoin mining operations in North America, just won rare back-to-back upgrades from major Wall Street banks.
Reporting from Coindesk indicates that JPMorgan and Citigroup raised their ratings on Riot’s stock, saying its push into artificial intelligence (AI) could give it a critical edge over competitors.
Bitcoin mining involves using massive amounts of electricity to power computers that secure the Bitcoin network and earn block rewards in the form of newly distributed coins. But every four years, those rewards are cut in half. After the latest halving in 2024, many miners are struggling to stay profitable.
Riot is responding by retooling its giant data centers to support high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud services — the same type of infrastructure needed to train and run AI systems.
Analysts at JPMorgan said there’s a 50% chance Riot, Cipher and IREN could secure near-term HPC hosting contracts, citing Core Scientific’s $3.7 billion CoreWeave deal as a benchmark. While JPMorgan downgraded IREN overall, the bank still assigns it the same probability of winning AI-related business as Riot and Cipher.
On the back of this shift, JPMorgan boosted Riot’s price target to $19, while Citi raised its target to $24. Shares of Riot dipped slightly on Friday but still outperformed a sector-wide selloff. By contrast, JPMorgan downgraded rivals IREN and CleanSpark, citing weaker prospects, while leaving a buy rating on Cipher Mining and trimming Marathon Digital’s target.
The moves highlight a broader industry divide: miners sticking solely to bitcoin versus those betting their future on AI and cloud computing.
This is a developing story.
This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor Jeffrey Albus before publication.
Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:
- The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
- 0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.
