Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target to $165 as AI Infrastructure Shift Accelerates

Benchmark nearly doubled its price target on Bitcoin miner Hut 8 Corp. to $165 from $85, arguing that the company’s AI data center business has entered a full-scale monetization phase and changed how the market should value the company.

CoinDesk reported on July 14 that Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer maintained his buy rating on Hut 8 while sharply lifting the target price. With the stock trading around $100, the new target implies roughly 65% upside.

In a report, Palmer wrote that the higher target reflects the contribution from Beacon Point, Hut 8’s second and larger hyperscale project. He described Hut 8 as rapidly evolving into a power-backed data center REIT with in-house development capabilities. The stock has fallen about 30% over the past six weeks, but that decline does not fully reflect the strength of the company’s business momentum, he wrote.

Hut 8 has signed 15-year triple-net lease agreements covering a combined 597 megawatts of IT capacity across two campuses: River Bend in Louisiana and Beacon Point in Texas. Palmer estimated the contracts carry a base lease value of $16.8 billion, rising to as much as $42.8 billion if tenants exercise renewal options.

For Phase 1 of the Beacon Point project alone, the base contract value is estimated at $9.8 billion, with average annual net operating income of about $655 million. Hut 8 has also completed investment-grade project financing of $3.25 billion for River Bend and $4.25 billion for Beacon Point.

Bitcoin miners are increasingly expanding into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. Core Scientific, Hive Digital and Bit Digital are also reallocating some of their power and infrastructure assets to AI workloads in a push to secure long-term fixed revenue.

Benchmark said Hut 8’s development pipeline exceeds 9 gigawatts across exclusive negotiations, development, construction and operations. The firm added that second-quarter results may mask the underlying profitability of the AI infrastructure business because of mark-to-market accounting for Bitcoin holdings and the consolidation of American Bitcoin (ABTC).