Bitcoin miner Riot lands $9B Anthropic lease: Assessing impact on BTC as revenue expands

Riot Platforms announced a 20-year data center lease with Anthropic that could generate about $9 billion in revenue, with an option to extend the deal through 2053 and lift total revenue above $16 billion. The contract covers 191 megawatts of IT capacity at Riot’s Texas campus, with phased deployment beginning at 96 megawatts by December 2027 and full capacity by 2028. Riot also secured $573 million in financing from Morgan Stanley to fund development. Investors welcomed the shift toward AI infrastructure, sending Riot shares up 25% in after-hours trading to $24.3. For Bitcoin, the key implication is that higher non-mining revenue may reduce Riot’s need to sell BTC to support operations, potentially easing selling pressure in the market despite the company’s wider Q2 loss.