CoinDesk Podcast Network Blockspace: IREN’s Nvidia Partnership and 5 GW Plan, Hut 8’s $9.7B Hyperscaler Deal, Strategy May Sell BTC to Own the Short Sellers
May 9, 2026
Francis Corvino, co-founder of Lygos, gives a capital-markets take on bitcoin-backed finance and risk. Kaan Farahani, Luxor data analyst, breaks down April hashrate, hash price, difficulty moves and mining economics. They discuss IREN’s Nvidia partnership and 5 GW roadmap, Hut 8’s massive hyperscaler lease, miners pivoting to AI and potential BTC sales by Strategy.
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IRON's 5 GW Nvidia-Powered AI Ambition
- IRON is pursuing a 5 GW AI buildout anchored by an NVIDIA Blackwell deal for ~60 MW at Childress, Texas with a $3.4B contract value and a $70 warrant for up to 30M shares.
- IRON also agreed to buy >50,000 NVIDIA B300 GPUs and aims for 150,000 GPUs by end of 2026, making it a potential top cloud provider by capacity.
IRON Buys Software And European Capacity
- IRON bought Mirantis to add software orchestration for their GPU clusters and paid €165M for Nostrum to add 490 MW in Spain, signaling a push into European AI/HPC capacity.
- Colin notes Mirantis strengthens deployment and management for the NVIDIA AI Cloud contract and supports IRON's move into Europe.
Hut 8's $9.8B Beacon Point Lease
- Hut 8 signed a 15-year lease for 352 MW at Beacon Point valued at $9.8B base term with 3% annual escalator and three 5-year renewal options potentially lifting value to $25.1B.
- Hut 8 now has 597 MW contracted across campuses with $16.8B base-term value and aims for initial energization Q1 2027.