Cipher Digital

Cipher Digital Inc. (Nasdaq: CIFR; formerly Cipher Mining, rebranded February 2026) is a West Texas power-and-land developer pivoting from Bitcoin self-mining to wholesale HPC colocation. It originates power, builds substations and cooled shells, and leases them to hyperscalers who bring their own compute.

Its grid interconnections — finalized before ERCOT's PGRR145 'Batch 0' lockdown — are a competitive moat. The model is asset-light on silicon: long-duration triple-net leases backed by Amazon and Google-backstopped Fluidstack target utility-like cash flows with near-zero GPU-obsolescence risk, at the cost of high pre-revenue leverage during the build.

Cipher's bet is that owning the scarce inputs — grid-connected Texas power and land — while letting tenants own the depreciating GPUs is the lower-risk way to monetize the AI build-out. Triple-net leases backed by investment-grade hyperscalers turn megawatts into bond-like cash flows.

The catalyst is conversion: Barber Lake (September 2026) and Black Pearl (October 2026) flipping from construction to rent commencement. Until then the company carries ~$5B of project debt against a self-mining business in wind-down — the re-rating follows the first hyperscale rent checks, not the announcements.

Cipher originates power and land, builds substations and cooled shells, and leaves the GPUs to the tenant — a wholesale colocation developer sitting near the power end of the spectrum. Long-duration triple-net leases backed by investment-grade hyperscalers (Amazon; Google-backstopped Fluidstack) make it a utility-like infrastructure play with near-zero silicon-obsolescence risk.