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Hey miners, welcome or welcome back to the channel, MCN Money, the official home of power mining analysis. Bitcoin has pulled back into the $88,000 range. The Bitcoin mining stocks have unfortunately followed suit; that's what we're going to be talking about in today's presentation. In addition to some potentially concerning news between Microsoft, CoreWeave, and its potential impact on Core Scientific, we just received production results for the month of February from Iron and some very exciting news from Saluna Holdings. All of that and more in today's video. Before we get into it, take a second, hit the like button—you guys are a big help to myself and the channel. Anthony loves it! If you're not already subscribed to MCN Money, feel free to join and let us know in the comments section below if you're currently holding any of these three miners, your outlook on the Bitcoin mining sector overall, and your thoughts or potential outcomes for tomorrow's Crypto Summit heading into the weekend. Now, with that being said, let's get into today's video.
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Ah, okay guys, Thursday afternoon here. A selloff in the Bitcoin mining space. Anthony, we're going to be talking about that in today's presentation, but to kick things off, I'll bring up the Bitcoin stock chart or price here in the $88,000 range. Some uncertainty going into tomorrow's Crypto Summit; we've got some additional news on that later on, but the market again seems to be in a bit of a holding pattern.
Yeah, and I wasn't expecting any drop today going into tomorrow because everything seems positive. The people are going there—all heads of the industry, CEOs of large public companies—and obviously have the White House committee also in that meeting. So Michael Saylor has been on various news platforms today to discuss the Strategic Crypto Reserve and give an indication of, sort of like, you know, maybe a six-month rollout of this process. It's going to be interesting to see how that all plays out. The market seems eerily quiet—almost the calm before the storm.
If we bring up the Bitcoin mining stocks, them—as I mentioned—as a sea of red, one standing out specifically though, Anthony: Core Scientific. We talked about it quite a bit already this week. We'll get into the news in a second here, but definitely some trading that we haven't seen typically for this ticker. A news item came up this morning with regards to Microsoft pulling back on some of the deals with CoreWeave, and we know that CoreWeave had this significant deal with Core Scientific, so they're a knock-on effect there, but nothing's been substantiated yet. We heard news the other day about Microsoft maybe pulling out a little bit further from the HPC AI space. Again, it's not fully substantiated, but it has affected Core Scientific's share price because they are heavily involved in that deal with CoreWeave.
Yeah, and that's what I wanted to bring up here, Anthony. It is unsubstantiated at this point. We've heard rumors: Microsoft in and out of the Stargate deal; we've now heard in and out of potentially some CoreWeave contracts. CoreWeave themselves are coming out saying they have heard nothing as to do with this cancellation. However, if you look at the Core Scientific chart at the time I took this image, down 14%, $13.2 a share. And if you actually trace back this current share price in the $8.20, $8.30 range, you can go all the way back to the start of June, which ironically, Anthony, is very close to when we were down in Denton initially hearing about this big CoreWeave contract. So you think of all the accomplishments on this timeline slide over the last year since this June timeframe, and to see the share price now back in the mid-eight range is really quite a head scratcher. That was pretty much exactly when we were at the Denton facility, you know, back in sort of around about that June 10th, June 12th period last year. So, and we noticed even that day at Denton the share price had gone up—I think it was double digits on the day, I think it went up 14, 15% during that presentation that Adam gave to all the—in the room. Move forward nine months, and we're at 590 megawatts on that deal now, so that's a massive deal, and hopefully we'll get at least some sort of announcement from CoreWeave or Core Scientific to either substantiate it or disagree with what's been put into the news outlets at the moment. But yeah, the share price, you know, down today—this, for me, is effectively a buying opportunity because Core Scientific, it's not as if they had that full contract factored into their share price. I mean, they're still a Bitcoin miner with, you know, close to 20 exahashes, which is going to get upgraded in terms of efficient mining chips coming in place in Q3, and they've still got this—we're not told the whole deal's off, and we're not told any deals off at the moment. So I'd be waiting to hear an update from the company or from CoreWeave at least to say what's happening.
Yeah, it seems very similar to some of the prior FUD we heard about DeepSeek about the Microsoft Stargate cancellations. I wanted to bring up the CoreWeave summary slide, Anthony. We've talked about this extensively this week, specifically on the channel. You're right in saying it appears these numbers and this contract are not being priced into the share price. Interesting though, in their recent presentation, the first priority for 2025 in terms of catalysts was diversifying this customer base. Obviously, a single customer presents a risk to any business; we've talked about this a lot on the channel. We mentioned in this most recent earnings release CoreWeave actually upsized the deal, that gave us more confidence that this was going to be a sure thing, so to speak. So definitely interesting, Anthony. We've talked about this single-client risk; however, at this point, unsubstantiated concerns about Microsoft potentially pulling out of CoreWeave doesn't necessarily mean CoreWeave would pull out or downgrade their contract with Core Scientific, nor does it mean Microsoft is the only client for CoreWeave.
Absolutely. Even if even if these rumors are substantiated, think about the gap between what's available in terms of power to feed HPC AI at the moment and what they need in the US. And if you remember our podcast with Dan Roberts, the gap's amazing. I mean, this deal with CoreWeave and Core Scientific is fractional in terms of what's really required. They're looking to try and gain something like 28 GW more than is available at the moment. So, you know, 590 megawatts—if it's not a deal with Microsoft or CoreWeave, I'm sure there are many, many other requirements out there that want facilities that have been proven to have the right level of power, fiber, water, all the various elements in place, and with a company that has a track record of building data centers. So I don't think this is too big an issue for Core Scientific. I'd like to hear obviously something from the company in the next few days just to address this news point today, but I still think Core Scientific is a company that I'll be continuing to invest in on a monthly basis as and when my funds come through for my pension.
Yeah, as they say, if you liked Core at $12.10, you should love it at $8. And in addition to all those points you just made, Anthony, Reuters is putting out an article today stating AI firm CoreWeave denies contract cancellations with Microsoft. So again, could be completely FUD here, but the share price definitely responding in a big way today. And I did also want to mention this agreement between Microsoft and CoreWeave—this is not a new agreement. Similar to how you talked about the prior relationship with CoreWeave, Core Scientific—if you look back even to last year, Microsoft accounted for about 62% of CoreWeave's revenue. So this is an existing partnership; they've already worked together, they've already had contracts in excess of a billion, and we'll continue to monitor this situation.
Now the other one here, Anthony, very exciting for the Bitcoin mining community: Iron has put out their production results for the month of February. Iron has slowly become a fan favorite on the channel over the last 12 to 18 months, and with their increasing hash rate, their efficiency, their growing Bitcoin production per month, I can see exactly why so many people are bullish on this name. Compass Mining makes Bitcoin mining accessible to everyone. Start mining in as little as 48 hours with our turnkey hardware online and directly to your Bitcoin wallet within two business days. Find out more at compassmining.com and get started now.
Yeah, absolutely. We've been supporting Iron for the last few years now, ever since they IPO'd back in late 2021—so just over three years—and they've grown enormously since then. 0.5 of an exahash when they went public, and now they're at 31 exahashes in total machines energized. February's update was another good update, and bear in mind Iron are a consistent sort of top three, top four miner month in, month out in terms of what they can produce with their hash rate, and February will be probably no different from that. When I've looked at the results already, there's still a few more to come through, but they're certainly in that top two or three at the moment. Bitcoin mined—well, we know from all the updates that obviously a lot of the miners, those that haven't increased any significant operational hash rate, will be obviously mining less than January because there's a 31-day month in January, only 28 days in February. So Iron mined 459 Bitcoin; that's a 12% drop. The operational hash rate—now this could be partly due to curtailment in Texas. So bear in mind Iron, that facility, the Childers facility there, they're using the market rate for power, and as soon as the power spikes they'll switch off machines. So a lot of the miners in Texas are using that availability because they can switch off very quickly, switch back on when the power rate drops, and maximize the potential of paying a low power cost during the month by doing that sort of activity. Operational hash rate was lower than January; it was 28.7, only 1% lower. Their installed hash rate is still at 31, but we expect that to start increasing as more of these 25-megawatt buildings come online. And we saw them coming online literally one or two a month towards the end of last year. So they've got a target of 50 exahashes by the end of June, so I would expect March's update to start showing that figure start to move closer up towards 35, up towards 40, and get to 50 by the middle of the year. We fully expect them to do it; they did that sort of hash rate in the last six months of 2024; they should be able to do it in the first six months of 2025. Current operational power at all their sites is a total of 510 megawatts. They have got the lowest mining efficiency of all the public miners; 15—the next nearest to them is CleanSpark, and they're over 17 at the moment. So there's a healthy gap between Iron and the second-place miner in terms of efficiency, and what does that mean? It means you're mining, you're using less power to mine a Bitcoin, so you're keeping your cost down in terms of the power cost. It has increased by 15% from January to February, so that's another that's sort of another reason that sort of backs up my thought about curtailment there. So the power has increased; it was $24,683 per Bitcoin, now it's up to $28,341. It still gives them a healthy margin. Iron were able to produce in that last quarter of 2024 with their results; they were producing a Bitcoin total cash cost of just literally a touch over $40,000. So even at today's price of $88,000 and allowing for that increase there of 4,000 in terms of additional power cost in February, they're still making a really healthy margin on a cash basis for their Bitcoin mined. And the mining margin you can see clearly there from the slide: 70% in February, 75% in January. Another thing to note: AI cloud services revenue increased by 50% between January and February, so they're at 1.2 million now; that's close to a 15-million run rate for the annualized revenue, and the hardware profit margin on that service is 96%. Obviously, that is, you know, taking just the power cost away from the revenues they receive. Bear in mind, you know, the GPUs and the build to build the sites are not including that calculation, but very healthy margins on both Bitcoin mining and HPC for Iron—all looking good.
Yeah, no kidding. I was really happy to see that jump on the HPC revenue as well, and some great photos out from their facilities. You can see Sweetwater starting to take shape, and some great schematics of their Childers facility.
Now next up, Anthony, we talk about FUD—fear, uncertainty, doubt—in the headlines here. This was one that came out a few weeks ago. DeepSeek seems now to actually be a positive for the industry or space as there's more adoption. We talked about Jevons' Paradox on the channel: reduced costs lead to overall increased adoption. It seems one of the miners, Saluna Holdings, taking advantage of this opportunity with a great press release today talking about this DeepSeek initiative.
Yeah, yeah. So they've announced that one of their subsidiaries, Saluna Cloud, which obviously looks after the HPC AI business, is powering Atlas's Cloud's new DeepSeek R1 offering in North America. And the platform itself will deliver high-performance AI inferencing using 128 Nvidia H100 SXM4 Infiniband GPUs, which provide a superior speed and efficiency. DeepSeek Car1—when we spoke about DeepSeek when the initial rumors came out, and look what happened to the market that day. I mean, literally $2-2 trillion was wiped off the market that day, and we've seen a little bit of recovery since then. So again, it goes in line with some of these comments when comments come out there, the market reacts quicker than actually digesting and understanding what the comments were in the first place. So, but DeepSeek Car1 is now available to North American users through the Atlas Cloud's advanced inference platform. It offers faster performance and lower costs than DeepSeek's native deployment. The partnership formalized in January leverages Saluna Cloud's sustainable data center for secure AI deployment, and this collaboration addresses rising demand for locally hosted AI solutions, reducing the reliance on China-hosted models while ensuring compliance and data sovereignty in the United States. DeepSeek Car1 service officially launched on February 28th, expanding access for enterprises and developers across the region. So this is just another arm to Saluna's business model, and we can't keep emphasizing the diversity that Saluna brings to the table. They're such a small mining company in terms of market capitalization; they're certainly punching well above their weight in terms of delivering these projects of significant size, and hopefully this year we'll start seeing those revenues and margins reflect on what they're actually delivering. So looking forward to that next set of earnings coming out.
Yeah, so am I. A great update from Saluna. And so interesting you talk about that knee-jerk reaction of the market, Anthony. Something can be terrible on a Monday and great on a Tuesday, and as someone who's close to this sector, you and I follow the news day in, day out; it's interesting to see these storylines really change or morph between the weeks. Now the other storyline we were talking about yesterday, the SB21 bill in Texas, wanted to report that has successfully passed. The other exciting news here in relation to some policy—we mentioned yesterday this Crypto Summit being held by the president himself tomorrow; they're expecting some big announcements or a potential announcement to conclude that meeting. We've seen a few of the big miners as well starting to be a little bit more active in the political realm: both Riot Platforms and Marathon putting out posts today on social media talking about the economic benefit of Bitcoin mining, the importance of having domestic hash rate to really secure the blocks and the blockchain, and that Bitcoin mined in America focus that we heard the president talk about during his inauguration.
Yeah, it's great to see that both of these CEOs are playing a lead role in the space, and it's pivotal when you consider the timing of the summit tomorrow. We'll hopefully hear some positive news coming out of the White House, but that was great news to hear about Texas now passing through to the Senate. So all positive there. We know there's another number of other states that are following that trajectory as well, and there have been a few states that have said no at this point in time and may choose to relook at it in a year's time. So a lot of things happening; tomorrow's a big day, and hopefully, if we hear positive news tomorrow, that might give some credibility to the senators who are sort of on the fence at the moment thinking about their own states.
Yeah, that would sure be nice. I'm sure the volatility, specifically the downside volatility over the last few weeks, hasn't helped the case in a lot of these situations. I wanted to kick it back for closing thoughts here, Anthony. One positive we're starting to see—you and I work our way up the leaderboard here—Miner Madness in the final month of Q1. However, as a percentage return, still looking fairly dismal across the board.
Yeah, there's nobody in the competition in Miner Madness 2.0 in profits at the moment. On a slightly positive note, I'm still managing to hold the number one spot on the Anthony board, seventh overall. So that's—I think I was third yesterday, so just dropped down a little bit from there, but good to see quite a few of the analysts in the sort of like the top 100 at the moment there. Bryce, you're just outside the top 100 on 119th and at the moment probably about eighth on the analyst board, but there's four weeks left to go, so I'm hoping that we can still make some positive moves to get above that $300 market. Nice to finish in a positive position by the end of the competition.
Yeah, it certainly would be nice to finish in the green and to top the leaderboard there, Anthony. And when you're on the site checking your ranking or position, make sure you stop by the Miner Pages as well. We've been doing some work there; we've got the audio podcast, some of the live miner metrics, margins, quite a bit of content on the website as well, so you guys—with that being said, a big day tomorrow, we'll see if we get some additional direction or visibility into this Strategic Crypto Reserve. With that being said, let us know how you're feeling in the comment section below, hit the like button, feel free to subscribe; we'll see you back here then.
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