Miners Beat Bitcoin by 70% in 2026 as Terawulf Locks $12.8B in AI Contracts

Mining equities have sharply outperformed bitcoin in 2026 as investors revalue miners as AI/HPC data center operators rather than pure crypto plays. Bitcoin is roughly 12% below its Jan 1 level (from about $88,700 to the mid-$70k range), while leading mining stocks have delivered YTD gains of roughly 25%–73%. Terawulf leads the pack (+73.58% YTD) after locking in over $12.8 billion of contracted HPC revenue with deals anchored by Fluidstack and Core42, and others (Hut 8, Core Scientific, Applied Digital, Cipher Digital) have secured multibillion-dollar hyperscaler leases. The market impact: investor focus is shifting to contracted backlog, counterparties and delivery timelines, making miners’ equity performance increasingly decoupled from bitcoin’s price action.