Hut 8 drops 11% as AI-pivoting miners give back 2026 gains

Hut 8 fell 11% to $78.54 on Friday, leading AI-pivoting Bitcoin miners lower as traders unwound positions that tracked the group's 2026 gains. There's no same-day announcement behind the move.

"Total contracted AI data center capacity across Beacon Point and River Bend is roughly 949 megawatts, representing approximately $26.6 billion of expected aggregate base-term contract value," Asher Genoot, chief executive officer at Hut 8, said on the Aug. 4 earnings call.

TeraWulf slid 5% to $15.58, while IREN dropped 3% to $41.20. The Global X Data Center and Digital Infrastructure ETF fell 0.6% to $28.30, barely moving relative to the miners inside the broader theme. That gap tells the story: broad demand for AI data center capacity isn't what traders are selling this morning.

The question for Hut 8 shareholders is whether Beacon Point's contracted revenue begins converting into reported results, since the backlog is signed and dated but the cash hasn't yet shown up in the numbers. Reported Q2 2026 revenue of $74.93 million still reflects mostly compute activity, not the AI lease stream anchoring the equity story.

Selling Tracks the Year's Biggest Winners

Rank the three miners by 2026 performance and by Friday's loss and the order is identical. Hut 8 stock is up 93% year to date through Thursday's close and down the most today. TeraWulf stock is up 43% year to date through Thursday's close, and its Friday drop is smaller. IREN stock is up 13% year to date through Thursday's close, and its decline is the shallowest.

That proportionality points to profit-taking, not a re-underwriting of long-duration contracts or unit economics. What's being unwound is the specific bet that former Bitcoin miners can convert scarce power and shell space into AI tenancy, a bet that repriced violently upward earlier this year.

Full-chain options positioning still leans bullish across the group, with Hut 8's put-call ratio at 0.45, TeraWulf's at 0.37, and IREN's at 0.34. Traders sitting on sizable call exposure have every incentive to trim as the year's gains compress.

Beacon Point Backlog Sits Behind the Story

Hut 8's backlog isn't Friday news, but it frames why the stock has run so far and why it's giving back the most today. On May 6, Hut 8 commercialized the first phase of its 1 gigawatt Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas with a 15-year, 352 megawatt IT lease carrying a base-term contract value of $9.8 billion. By July 20, the company had fully commercialized the campus with a second 352 megawatt IT lease, bringing campus-level base-term contract value to $19.6 billion.

Both milestones predate this session. Initial data hall delivery is targeted for Q2 2027 at River Bend and Q3 2027 at Beacon Point, so none of that contracted revenue has hit the income statement yet.

The Global X ETF's muted move is the cleanest evidence that broader AI infrastructure demand isn't being repriced today. It has advanced 35% year to date through Thursday's close, so it has participated in the theme, yet Friday's drop is tiny relative to the miners. Its portfolio leans toward established data center REITs and communications tower operators, with the top three positions each accounting for more than 9% of net assets. That divergence points to a rotation out of the highest-beta corner of the AI infrastructure trade rather than a sector-wide reassessment of demand.

Investors sizing exposure to this group may want to keep positions moderate given how proportional Friday's selling is to prior gains. Hut 8 stock dropping 11% against a 0.6% move in DTCR shares shows the single-stock risk in this pocket. A cautious weighting, paired with attention to the next Hut 8 quarterly report for the first Beacon Point revenue signals, remains the sensible stance.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.