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Hut 8 Mining Corp. reported a wider-than-expected loss for the second quarter of 2026, even as revenue rose sharply and the company pushed ahead with its transformation from a Bitcoin miner into a broader digital infrastructure platform. The company posted adjusted revenue of $105.18 million, below the $111.29 million analyst forecast, and an EPS loss of $1.78, compared with expectations for a loss of 51.9 cents. The stock was down 2.5% to $147.22 in premarket trading, after closing at $151, leaving it well above its 52-week low but below its recent peak.
Key Takeaways
- Revenue rose 81% from a year earlier, helped by stronger compute operations and higher Bitcoin production.
- Compute revenue more than doubled, while gross margin widened to about 64%.
- Adjusted EBITDA increased to $10.4 million from $4.2 million a year earlier.
- The company reported a large GAAP net loss, driven mainly by non-cash digital asset mark-to-market losses.
- Hut 8 said it has secured about $7.5 billion in investment-grade project financing for two campuses.
Company Performance
Hut 8 said its core operating business improved meaningfully in the quarter. Revenue climbed to $74.9 million from about $41.4 million a year earlier, driven by stronger compute results and a sharp rise in Bitcoin production. The company mined about 935 Bitcoin in the quarter, up from roughly 308 Bitcoin in the same period last year, helped by the start of operations at its Vega facility and the re-energization of its Drumheller site.
The company’s strategy is shifting away from a pure mining model and toward an energy infrastructure platform built around scarce power. Management said the long-term goal is to commercialize power through AI data centers, Bitcoin mining and other applications, depending on demand and economics. That shift is already visible in the company’s growing contracted infrastructure portfolio and large project financing wins.
Still, the quarter also showed the cost of that transition. General and administrative expense rose to $76.1 million from $30.2 million a year earlier, largely because of share-based compensation. Hut 8 said much of that spending is tied to growth rather than maintenance, but the higher expense base will likely remain a focus for investors.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $74.9 million, up 81% year over year.
- Compute revenue: $72.5 million, up 111% from $34.3 million.
- Digital infrastructure revenue: $1.3 million, roughly flat from a year earlier.
- Power segment revenue: $1.2 million, down from $5.5 million after the sale of the Far North portfolio.
- Gross profit: about $48 million.
- Gross margin: about 64%, up from about 47% a year earlier.
- Adjusted EBITDA: $10.4 million, up 148% from $4.2 million.
- GAAP net loss: $177.1 million, mainly due to a $138 million loss on digital assets.
- General and administrative expense: $76.1 million, up from $30.2 million.
- Bitcoin production: about 935 BTC, up from about 308 BTC.
- Market capitalization: $11.83 billion.
- Last twelve months revenue (as of Q1 2026): $284.32 million, up 115% year over year.
- Gross profit margin (last twelve months): ~60%.
Earnings vs. Forecast
Hut 8’s reported EPS loss of $1.78 was far worse than the $0.519 loss analysts expected. The difference of $1.261 per share represented a 242.97% miss versus the forecast. Revenue also came in below expectations, missing by $6.11 million, or 5.49%.
The size of the miss may look severe, but the company said the GAAP loss was heavily affected by non-cash digital asset accounting. Management argued that the underlying operating business improved, pointing to stronger revenue, higher margins and a larger adjusted EBITDA figure. Even so, the headline EPS miss was large enough to overshadow those gains in the near term.
Market Reaction
The stock fell 2.5% to $147.22 in premarket trading, down $3.78 from the previous close of $151. The move suggests investors were cautious after the earnings release, even though the shares remain far above the 52-week low of $25.68. At the current price, the stock is about 24.2% below its 52-week high of $194.28. The volatility is characteristic of the stock, which carries a beta of 6.07, indicating it moves more than six times as much as the broader market. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock currently appears overvalued relative to its Fair Value, placing it among companies on the Most Overvalued list—a consideration for investors weighing entry points amid the company’s transition strategy.
The decline was not extreme, which may indicate that some investors were already expecting volatility given the company’s exposure to Bitcoin prices and project-based accounting. Still, the weaker-than-expected EPS and revenue figures likely pressured the shares before the market opened.
Outlook & Guidance
Hut 8 did not issue traditional near-term earnings guidance in the call, but it outlined a long development runway. Management said the company’s 8.7-gigawatt pipeline is up about 300 megawatts from the prior quarter, with 11 sites in diligence or exclusivity stages.
The company’s main near-term priorities are completing River Bend and Beacon Point, two large AI data center campuses. River Bend is under construction, with structural steel erection already underway. Beacon Point has now been fully commercialized after a second building lease was signed for 352 megawatts of IT capacity.
Management also said it is exploring behind-the-meter generation, which could help deliver power faster than grid-connected projects alone. Those opportunities are not included in the reported pipeline. Despite the strong revenue growth—analysts anticipate continued sales growth this year—the company faces profitability headwinds. InvestingPro Tips highlight that net income is expected to drop this year and the company is not anticipated to be profitable in 2026. Still, the stock has delivered exceptional returns, up 429% over the past year. Investors seeking deeper analysis can access Hut 8’s comprehensive Pro Research Report, one of 1,400+ available on InvestingPro, which transforms complex data into clear, actionable intelligence.
Executive Commentary
CEO Asher Genoot said the company is building around a scarce resource, not a single use case. “Electricity is becoming one of the scarcest resources in the economy,” he said. “Hut 8 is an energy infrastructure platform.”
He also stressed the company’s capital discipline. “We don’t underwrite applications. We underwrite scarce power,” Genoot said. “Applications change. Customer demand changes. Technology changes. Our job is to preserve the flexibility to commercialize that power through the highest value use case over time.”
CFO Sean Glennan said the company’s financing model is now proven. “We raised $7.5 billion of investment-grade, long duration project financing for 2 construction stage campuses with no recourse to the parent,” he said. He added that the company’s financial profile is shifting away from compute and digital asset accounting toward contracted infrastructure cash flows.
Risks and Challenges
- Bitcoin price volatility: Hut 8 still reports results that can swing sharply with digital asset prices and mark-to-market accounting.
- Rising overhead: General and administrative expense increased sharply, which could pressure profitability if growth does not keep pace.
- Execution risk: The company must deliver River Bend and Beacon Point on time to support its long-term strategy.
- Regulatory scrutiny: Data center development is drawing more attention from state and local officials, especially around power and water use.
- Capital intensity: The business requires large amounts of financing and careful project structuring to avoid refinancing risk.
Q&A
Analysts focused on behind-the-meter power, regulatory scrutiny in Texas, project financing, M&A opportunities and customer demand.
One question centered on whether behind-the-meter generation could help Hut 8 move faster. Genoot said such capacity is in demand and could complement grid power, but the company will not include those megawatts in its reported pipeline until they are real and contracted.
Analysts also asked about Governor Greg Abbott’s letter calling for more scrutiny of data centers. Management said it welcomes the process and has already provided detailed information to regulators. The company said tighter oversight may favor established developers with stronger execution records.
Questions on financing drew a confident response. Glennan said the market remains open to quality paper, while Genoot said the company is taking a first-principles approach to the next Beacon Point financing rather than simply copying the prior deal.
Analysts also pressed on M&A. Genoot said Hut 8 receives daily inbound interest, but only a minority of opportunities are worth pursuing. He said the company is selective and prefers deals where customer demand and capital structure are aligned.
Full transcript - Hut 8 Corp (HUT) Q2 2026:
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Good morning. Welcome to Hut 8’s second quarter 2026 financial results conference call. Joining us today are our CEO, Asher Genoot, and our CFO, Sean Glennan. Following the presentation, we will open the line for questions. This event is being recorded and a transcript will be made available on our website. In addition to the press release issued earlier today, our full quarterly report on Form 10-Q is available at hut8.com, on our EDGAR profile at sec.gov, and on our SEDAR+ profile at sedarplus.ca. Unless otherwise indicated, all figures discussed today are in US dollars. Certain statements made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements reflect current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
Certain key risks are detailed in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2025, and our continuous disclosure documents. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. During the call, management may reference non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA. We believe these measures, alongside GAAP results, provide valuable insight into our performance. Reconciliations of GAAP and non-GAAP results are included in the tables accompanying today’s press release available on our website. We will begin with a moderated Q&A session with our CEO, Asher Genoot, followed by a detailed financial review from our CFO, Sean Glennan. Let’s get started.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I’ll start today with a conversation with Mark Eidelman, our new head of investor relations, who joined us in June from NextEra Energy. Mark has spent the last several weeks speaking with the research and investor community. I asked him to share some of the comments, questions, observations that he has heard most. After our discussion, Sean will walk through the quarter. We’ll open up the line for questions.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Thanks, Asher. Investors often describe Hut 8 as a Bitcoin miner that transitioned to data center development. I do not think that framing is quite right. What is Hut 8? What does power-first actually mean?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: I think everything starts with one simple observation. Electricity is becoming one of the scarcest resources in the economy. Hut 8 is an energy infrastructure platform. We build large-scale digital infrastructure around scarce power. AI, Bitcoin mining, high-performance computing, and whatever comes next are applications running on that platform. AI happens to be the highest value application today. Power-first is not simply a development strategy. It is the operating system for how we allocate capital, manage risk, and build the business. Bitcoin mining was our first proof point. We learned how to source low-cost power, build infrastructure faster and more efficiently, and operate assets at scale. AI infrastructure rewards those same capabilities, but across larger deployments, longer duration contracts, and more financiable cash flows. The operating model has not changed. The opportunity has expanded. In practice, our framework is repeatable.
Originate power, secure site control and interconnection, commercialize with high credit quality counterparties, finance efficiently, and build and operate against long duration contracted cash flows. River Bend, Beacon Point, and the financings we will discuss today are outputs of that same framework. We’re not building a collection of projects. We’re building a platform that repeatedly converts scarce power into long duration contracted infrastructure assets.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: That makes sense. Many companies now describe themselves as Power-first or as AI infrastructure developers. How should investors distinguish capability from the claim?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Power-first is not the differentiator. Capability is. The differentiator is the ability to consistently originate, commercialize, finance, and execute infrastructure around scarce power. That starts with how we allocate capital. We don’t underwrite applications. We underwrite scarce power. Applications change. Customer demand changes. Technology changes. Our job is to preserve the flexibility to commercialize that power through the highest value use case over time. Beacon Point is a good example. When we first invested in the site, we underwrote a Bitcoin commercialization path because it offered attractive risk-adjusted returns when we weren’t sure the location hit the requirements of AI workloads. We never underwrote the investment around one outcome. We preserved multiple commercialization paths from day one. As AI demand accelerated and locations started being more of a preference rather than a requirement, we commercialized the same underlying power through a higher value application.
We did not predict the future. We built the flexibility to adapt to it. Our first two AI campuses were not existing Bitcoin mining facilities that we converted, and I think that’s really important for people to understand about the Hut 8 story. Our first two campuses that we’ve announced were not existing Bitcoin mining facilities that we had converted. They were greenfield campuses that we originated from the ground up, commercialized with investment-grade anchored counterparties, and financed in the investment-grade markets, and are now executing through construction. At the same time, approximately 700 MW of our infrastructure supports our affiliated tenant, American Bitcoin. That demonstrates that we can commercialize power through more than one application, and the market has already provided meaningful evidence of that capability. We have three 15-year leases with investment-grade anchored counterparties in the last nine months alone.
Two of the first investment-grade construction financings for single sponsor data center projects. Multiple greenfield campuses advanced through origination, commercialization, financing, and now construction. In infrastructure, capability is not measured by what you say. It is measured by what customers sign and what capital markets finance.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: One of the things I want to talk about is financing. At JPMorgan, I financed projects at JPMorgan and then helped build projects at NextEra. One of the things I want to introduce is why I left all of that and joined Hut 8. I think the best way to answer that is to start with what I’ve learned over the last 20 years. Great infrastructure companies are not built around individual assets. They’re built around repeatable systems that can consistently originate, commercialize, finance, build, and operate infrastructure over long periods of time. That is what stood out to me about Hut 8. River Bend alone did not convince me. Beacon Point alone did not convince me. What convinced me was that both were produced by the same system. Projects can be replicated, systems compound.
Before I joined, I spent a lot of time to challenge you, Asher, and the team on the risks. Power origination and interconnection, customer relationships and counterparty quality, delivery timelines and construction risk, capital formation and financing, repeatability and the long-term vision. You had well-thought-out answers to each of my questions that demonstrated that you understood the core risks and were mitigating them effectively. I was not looking for every risk to disappear. Infrastructure is not about eliminating risk. It’s about understanding it, structuring it, and allocating capital accordingly. Having spent my career financing and helping build infrastructure businesses, I recognize the same characteristics I’ve seen in the very best platforms. Disciplined capital allocation, rigorous risk management, and a repeatable system for creating value.
This is also a rare opportunity to help build an infrastructure company at the beginning of its journey around one of the most valuable resources in the economy, power. Large infrastructure platforms are built by repeatedly applying the same discipline framework over many years. I believe Hut 8 is at the beginning of that journey. Asher, the topic you hear most from investors, execution risk. Hut 8 has not yet delivered projects of this scale, on this timeline, for counterparties of this quality. What is the basis for your confidence in on-time delivery?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: I think execution starts long before construction. People often think execution begins when you start pouring concrete, I think construction is the final stage of execution, not the beginning of it. By the time construction starts, a lot of the most important decisions should have already been made. That’s why we think about execution as a system and not an event. It starts with disciplined underwriting, power origination, site control, permitting, engineering, procurement, financing, counterparty alignment, construction sequencing. Every one of those decisions is made to reduce uncertainty before we mobilize on-site. Our confidence rests on three things. Priority. Delivering River Bend and Beacon Point on time is our number 1 priority. Our reputation and the repeatability of the model depend on it. Discipline. Permitting, procurement, site work, power delivery, and counterparty coordination all run in a single integrated schedule with conservative assumptions. Three, demonstrated capability.
We have energized industrial sale capacity before, repeatedly. The application has changed, the discipline required to deliver has not. Every campus we develop makes the platform stronger. It improves our engineering, supply chain, execution, institutional relationships, and ability to deliver the next campus. Execution is not something that we hope for. It’s something we design for. Every campus we develop makes the platform stronger.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Talking about campuses, let’s talk about River Bend. Where does construction stand today at River Bend, and what are the key milestones between here and energization?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Delivery is part of our model investors can verify in real-time, and we’re very pleased with where River Bend stands today. The team is executing well. Structural steel erection began in early June. The building foundations are expected to be completed before month’s end. That opens up additional work fronts and allows crews to move in in parallel rather than sequential right now. We began steel erection on the substation in mid-July, and now we’re beginning slab-on-grade pours across the auxiliary support yard in the main building. None of that is accidental. It’s what disciplined sequencing, integrated planning in one delivery schedule are designed to produce. Every milestone does more than advance River Bend. It strengthens our engineering, supply chain, and execution capabilities and our credibility behind the next transaction.
As our customers and our partners look at how we execute, they build more and more confidence. River Bend is not only a building, it’s a campus. It’s building capabilities that will make every campus after it and every building on the campus much better.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Thanks, Asher. Let’s shift to Beacon Point. We announced the second Beacon Point lease last month. What does that transaction demonstrate?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Beacon Point Building Two is important for a much bigger reason than just signing another lease. It’s another proof point that our framework is repeatable. The progression matters. RiverBend demonstrated that we could commercialize a greenfield campus with an investment-grade anchor counterparty. I know a lot of people were waiting for that, and we were able to announce that last December. Beacon Point Building One demonstrated that the framework was repeatable, but with a different customer. Beacon Point Building Two demonstrated something different. Again, an existing customer chose to expand under the same commercial framework. Different customers, same operating model, similar lease structure, same long duration, contracted cash flows. The second Beacon Point lease is for 352 megawatts of IT capacity and represents about $9.8 billion of expected base term contract value.
With that lease, the campus is now fully commercialized with full gigawatt of utility capacity supporting contracted investment-grade cash flows. The customer chose to double its footprint at Beacon Point. We think that’s one of the strongest forms of validation that an infrastructure platform can receive. Customers don’t expand because of presentations, they expand because they have confidence in the asset, confidence in our ability to deliver. Beacon Point also reinforces how we allocate capital. We originally, as I mentioned, underwrote the site for a Bitcoin commercialization path, but we preserved these multiple paths from day one. When the market evolved, we were able to commercialize that same power through a higher application and build it from greenfield. We didn’t change the asset, we just changed the application.
At the platform level, Beacon Point now represents 704 megawatts of contracted IT capacity, roughly about $19.6 billion of expected base term contract value. Together with RiverBend, total contracted AI data center capacity is about 949 megawatts, representing roughly $26.6 billion of expected aggregate base term contract value, all produced by the same operating model in less than a year. Every commercialization expands the platform, and it’s what compounding looks like for us. Mark, a key part of RiverBend and Beacon Point is not only the signed lease, but the executed financing behind it. When you look at the RiverBend financing from the outside, what did it signal to you?
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Sure. Let me start with what impressed me most. It was not the size of the financing, it was what the market agreed to underwrite. The transaction consisted of $3.25 billion of fully amortizing senior secured notes due 2042. Rated investment grade, issued at the project level, non-recourse to Hut 8, and backed by contracted lease revenues from a campus still under construction. The investment-grade market has historically not financed construction-stage data centers, especially single sponsor, single asset projects. Yet rating agencies and fixed income investors underwrote the contract structure, counterparty credit and backstop, Hut 8 delivery model, and risk allocation for 16 and a half years, covering the expected construction period and the entire 15-year lease. Having spent years on the other side of that analysis, I can tell you that credit committees do not finance ambition. They finance certainty and execution.
That was institutional validation of the development model, expressed in the most rigorous currency there is, committed capital at investment-grade pricing. It also proved the capital formation model. Each project raises debt against its own contracted cash flows, non-recourse to the parent, and fully amortizing. That generally ring-fences development risk and preserves capacity at the parent level. RiverBend did more than finance one campus. It created a repeatable template for financing future campuses. Beacon Point then applied that template again and on even better terms. RiverBend did not finance a campus. It created a repeatable engine for funding growth. Asher, that Beacon Point financing, as I mentioned, was executed on better terms than RiverBend, a higher rating, higher pricing, greater scale. What does that improvement tell you, and how does the capital structure support growth from here?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: I think it tells us that capital follows capability. We did not get an investment-grade financing because we wanted it. We earned it through the disciplined execution. When we first started RiverBend, I talked about this in one of our previous earnings, we went to the rating agencies, and the investment-grade result was because of what we presented them, not because we went in expecting that. Beacon Point consisted of $4.25 billion of senior secured notes. The notes were rated one notch higher above RiverBend, and they priced 20 points inside of RiverBend. The offering was substantially oversubscribed, with repeat investors returning and also new investors joining. We pushed amortization from two years on RiverBend to four years on Beacon Point. We did not copy the transaction. I think that’s really important because it would’ve been easy to do so.
We structured every term from first principles again, the result resulted in improved ratings, pricing, scale, and amortization. We didn’t negotiate our way to better terms. We earned it through the way that we structured and the way that we built the second project. The structure’s also what allows us to scale. It’s fully amortizing, so there’s no refinancing wall at the project level. It’s non-recourse, so there’s zero recourse debt at the parent level. It’s non-dilutive to equity holders. Each project is designed to generate sufficient cash flows to support the related construction financing. Growth is not constrained by the corporate balance sheet, and we can develop multiple campuses at once. Together, RiverBend and Beacon Point Building One represents approximately $7.5 billion of investment-grade capital raised for construction stage development.
Every successful financing expands the platform’s ability to finance the next one. This is capital formation compounding in real time in front of you all. Capital follows capability, and better capital is earned through better execution.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Asher, let’s shift gear a little bit. Behind the model and capital as an organization, how do you build one that can deliver at this scale and keep delivering as a platform grows?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: I think people are ultimately what determine whether a platform can compound over time. Organizations don’t scale because they own great assets. They scale because they build capabilities that can be repeated, and people create those capabilities. We’ve built the organization around actual life cycle of a project, not around a traditional corporate org chart. Origination, underwriting, development, financing, delivery, operations. We’ve been equally deliberate about the type of people we recruit. We want builders who take ownership, enjoy solving hard problems, think from first principles, and want to build something that compounds over decades, not quarters. I spoke about having being a company that’s more of a religion rather than a job on my last quarterly earnings. Honestly, I’ve had multiple folks interview, and bring that up and say, "I want to join this mission." Like-minded folks really attract each other.
I think of the team we assemble for a project almost like a group of Navy SEALs, and not an army. Everyone brings a specific skill set. Everyone has operated at a high level in that function, and they come together as one unit to execute from start to finish. We have also invested in talent with deep backgrounds across power development, infrastructure procurement, project execution, and capital markets. I mean, Mark, you’re an example of that. That investment shows up, though, in SG&A, and we do not view it as overhead creep. We view it as an investment in platform capacity and capability because we’re so focused on growth and scale. After our first two campuses, we now have a repeatable framework across design and engineering, supply chain, contracting, financing, and delivery. Organizations learn, capabilities compound.
Every campus improves the team, and the improved team makes the next campus better. People are not separate from the platform. They are the platform, and they are the capability that compounds every other capability.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Thanks for that, Asher. Let’s talk about the pipeline. Investors want greater visibility into the development pipeline. How do you decide what enters the pipeline and what changes quarter?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Look, I think it’s a fair ask. I think the first step is to frame the question correctly. The goal is not to build the largest headline megawatt number. The goal is to convert the right opportunities into financiable, commercializable infrastructure. We manage the pipeline like an underwriting exercise. The project must clear a series of gates before it moves forward. Power scale and speed to power, interconnection certainty, site control, and a path towards permitting, network access, customer demand, capital intensity, and risk-adjusted returns. Every megawatt in the reported pipeline has already been tested against those criteria. That’s what makes a number meaningful, not simply large. Through that lens, the development pipeline now stands at about 8.7 gigawatts, up approximately 300 megawatts from last quarter. We have 11 sites in the under diligence and under exclusivity stages, averaging more than 650 megawatts each.
On average, those opportunities are larger than each Beacon Point building. We did not only grow the pipeline; we advanced it. The exclusivity stage increased by 200 megawatts as projects moved forward from diligence. What’s really, really important is the reported number also excludes M&A opportunities, behind the meter power generation solutions, and potential RiverBend expansion, where the tenant holds a right of first offer on the next gigawatt. The direction of opportunity flow is also changing. RiverBend and Beacon Point have led more developers and power producers to bring opportunities to us rather than the other way around. They see our ability to execute, our ability to finance at scale, and have deep tenant relationships.
We’re having more inbound interest from an M&A perspective more than ever from developers who have a piece of land and an interconnect and need someone to commercialize that for them. I think that’s a sign that the platform itself is beginning to compound. We don’t optimize for the biggest pipeline. We optimize for the highest quality pipeline. Investors should underwrite the platform’s ability to repeat not only the next lease.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Last question for you, Asher.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: There’s clearly a philosophy underpinning these answers. How would you simply summarize our philosophy for investors?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: It comes down to a handful of principles we return to every day. Scarcity creates opportunity. First principles identifies that opportunity. Optionality protects capital. Commercialization creates value. Execution earns trust. Capital follows capability. Platforms compound. Everything starts with power, and we have built the operating system that turns those principles into contracted cash flow. We are proud of what the team has accomplished, but we still believe we are very early. Every campus strengthens the platform. Every financing expands our capabilities. Every customer deepens our relationships, and every great person makes the organization stronger. What I would encourage investors to underwrite is not our next project. It is our ability to compound capabilities over time, create projects that create earnings, and compounding capabilities that create enduring enterprise value.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Asher, thank you. Sean, let’s turn to the quarter’s financial results. Investors can read the income statement in the 10-Q, I want to focus this discussion on what the numbers say about the underlying business, the balance sheet, and Hut 8’s ability to finance growth. Revenue increased meaningfully year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA improved, yet the quarter still showed a significant GAAP net loss. How should investors reconcile those results?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: Thanks, Mark. I think there are three key takeaways in our financials. One, the operating business grew. Two, margins expanded. Three, EBITDA improved. Moving to the P&L items themselves, revenue increased approximately 81% year-over-year to $74.9 million, while cost of revenue increased by approximately 23%. That produced gross profit of approximately $48 million and expanded gross margin to approximately 64%, compared with approximately 47% in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding digital asset mark-to-market movements, was $10.4 million. That compares with $4.2 million in the prior year period. The GAAP net loss of $177.1 million was driven primarily by a $138 million loss in digital assets. Bitcoin declined during the quarter, while it had increased materially in the prior year period. The year-over-year comparison is dominated by a non-cash mark-to-market swing.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Thanks, Sean. Let’s go one level deeper. What were the most important drivers across power, digital infrastructure, and compute?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: Compute remained the primary operating contributor. Revenue increased to $72.5 million from $34.3 million, which was driven by an increase in Bitcoin mined from approximately 308 to approximately 935. That growth reflects additional operating capacity following the commencement of operations at Vega and the re-energization of our Drumheller facility. Compute cost of revenue increased at a much slower rate than revenue itself, resulting in a segment gross margin of approximately 66%. That operating leverage is important because it demonstrates the earnings capacity of the current platform even before our contracted AI data center revenues begin contributing. Digital infrastructure revenue was $1.3 million. That was broadly consistent with the prior year period. Today, that segment still reflects the legacy base. Its financial profile changes materially as Riverbend and Beacon Point data halls are delivered and the associated long-duration lease revenues begin coming online.
Power revenue declined to $1.2 million from $5.5 million, that’s primarily because the prior year quarter included a full quarter of activity from the Far North portfolio, which we sold in February. That decline is therefore not a function of decline in revenues, but it’s a function of portfolio management.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: General administration expense increased substantially. How should investors distinguish between recurring overhead and investment to the platform?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: Yeah. It’s something Asher touched on, and something that we focus on a lot, and it’s really important to us. Reported G&A was $76.1 million, and that compares with $30.2 million in the prior year period. However, approximately $43.6 million of the increase was share-based compensation. The majority of the year-over-year was non-cash. Cash investment also increased as we added talent and capabilities to support a much larger development platform. Salaries and benefits increased by approximately $4.1 million, primarily from additional headcount supporting growth initiatives, not maintenance initiatives, particularly in our energy origination group. We evaluate SG&A spending through a growth-first maintenance lens. The organization required to maintain today’s operating base is meaningfully smaller than the organization required to originate, finance, construct, and operate multimillion-dollar campuses in parallel. That does not mean growth spending is unconstrained.
We expect every investment in people, systems, and capabilities to be tied to specific commercial outcomes. More high-quality power origination, faster project conversion, lower cost of capital, improved execution, and stronger operating leverage over time.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Let’s talk about the balance sheets. It looks very different. Cash and restricted cash increased to approximately $7 billion. Our total debt increased to approximately $7.6 billion. What is the right way to interpret those figures?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: The first distinction is between corporate liquidity and project restricted capital. At June 30th, we had approximately $233.6 million of unrestricted cash and approximately $6.8 billion of restricted cash and cash equivalents. The restricted cash primarily represents proceeds from the Riverbend and Beacon Point financings, those are held in project accounts and can only be used for construction, debt service reserves, and other specified project purposes. It is not excess corporate cash, and the related debt is not general corporate leverage. Similarly, the majority of that approximately $7.6 billion carrying amount of debt consists of the $3.25 billion Riverbend notes and the $4.25 billion Beacon Point notes. Those obligations sit at bankruptcy-remote project subsidiaries. They’re secured by the applicable project assets and accounts, importantly, are non-recourse to Hut 8’s parent company.
The consolidated balance sheet has become larger because two of our three projects under construction are fully financed. Economically, each project is designed to service its own debt from its own contracted lease cash flows. That’s the financial architecture we want. Ring-fence project risk, preserve parent flexibility, and minimal reliance on corporate equity.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Investors would also notice that interest expense increased sharply, while interest income increased to $27.1 million. How should they think about the construction period carry on these financings?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: Interest expense increased because we closed $7.5 billion of long duration project financing during the quarter. That’s expected when fully funding two campuses before the related lease revenues begin. Importantly, the proceeds are not sitting idle. Undrawn construction funds are invested in short duration instruments within project accounts. Those funds generated $27.1 million of interest income in the quarter, partially offsetting the interest cost on the notes. We also capitalized $5.7 million of interest into construction in progress during the quarter. The accounting therefore reflects three components. Interest expense recognized currently, interest income earned on undeployed proceeds, and interest capitalized as part of the cost of the assets under construction. I think the broader point is that we structured these financings to remove refinancing risk and secure the full construction capital upfront.
There’s a cost to carrying committed capital during construction, but we believe that cost is outweighed by the certainty of funding, protection against future capital market volatility, and the ability to execute without returning to the market mid-build.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Well, how did the Coinbase conversion and the FalconX refinancing change the parent level balance sheet during the quarter?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: In our minds, it was pretty meaningful. In May, Coinbase converted the approximately $159.3 million of accreted principal balance of its note into $9.7 million shares. That eliminated our only remaining parent recourse debt. We also refinanced $200 million Coinbase facility with a new $200 million FalconX term loan. The coupon declined from 9% to 7% as a result of the refinancing, and the facility is collateralized by Bitcoin, not the parent. Those transactions simplify the parent capital structure. Excluding ordinary course obligations, the parent is not obligated under the Riverbend or Beacon Point notes, and the remaining significant financing is secured by a discrete pool of Bitcoin. That matters because one of our most valuable corporate assets is flexibility.
A clean parent balance sheet gives us the ability to fund early-stage development, absorb timing differences, pursue strategic opportunities, and choose the right financing for each asset, rather than being forced into the financing that happens to be available at a specific given point in time.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Beacon Point phase one is financed, and the second phase is now contracted. What principles will guide financing Beacon Point phase two and the broader development pipeline?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: I think it really comes down to four principles. As always, the first principle is going to be asset-level self-sufficiency. We’re going to seek to finance each project against its own contracted cash flows with risk generally ring-fenced at the project and no recourse to the parent wherever feasible. The second principle is optimization rather than repetition. Riverbend established the market. Beacon Point one improved on that execution with a larger issuance, a lower coupon, a higher rating, and a later start to scheduled amortization. We will not assume the next financing should look identical. We’re going to evaluate the asset, the lease, the construction schedule, market conditions, and investor demand from a first principles perspective. The third principle is disciplined use of equity. Equity should fund the portions of the development cycle where it creates the most value.
Origination, site control, interconnection, design, and other work required to convert an opportunity into a financeable project. Once contracted cash flows are in place, we want long duration project capital to fund construction. The fourth and final principle is preserving liquidity across the portfolio. The model needs to support several campuses advancing at once, not just one project at a time. That means matching duration, amortization, covenants, and recourse to the economics of each asset while maintaining capacity at the parent.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Thanks, Sean. To close, what should investors take away from the quarter from a financial perspective?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: I think this is really important. The first, the operating business has strengthened. Revenue grew, gross margins expanded, and adjusted EBITDA, excluding digital asset mark-to-market, increased year-over-year. Second, the capital formation model moved from concept to repeatable execution. We raised $7.5 billion of investment-grade, long duration project financing for 2 construction stage campuses with no recourse to the parent. Third, the parent balance sheet became cleaner. The convertible note converted, the Bitcoin-backed facility was refinanced at a lower coupon, and the majority of consolidated debt is now matched to contracted project cash flows. Finally, the financial profile is in transition. Today’s income statement is still dominated by compute and digital asset accounting. As Riverbend and Beacon Point are delivered, the mix should shift meaningfully towards long duration contracted digital infrastructure cash flows.
Our focus is to manage the transition with discipline, execute the projects, protect the parent balance sheet, and finance growth in a way that compounds value per share.
Operator/Moderator, Hut 8: Thank you, Sean. That concludes our prepared discussion. Operator, please open the line for questions.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: For analysts on the webcast, you can connect by phone to the conference call for Q&A by using the Switch to Conference Call window on the lower right of the webcast console. Once connected, to ask a question, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We kindly ask that you please limit your initial question to one and return to the queue for any follow-ups. Our first question will come from the line of Stephen Byrd with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Stephen Byrd, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking my question. I wanted to just dive into behind-the-meter generation and really just get your overall temperature check in terms of how desired is this by your customers. I guess this can really help to create much larger sites, and move much faster potentially. It strikes me as a very good complement to the grid access that you have and I know you’ve spoken to this before, but just curious sort of your latest thinking in terms of how likely is this in your view? How important is this to your customers to be able to sort of achieve both the timing and scale objectives that they have? I’d love any comments you might have on that.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Behind the meter, thanks, Stephen, appreciate the question. Behind-the-meter capacity will happen. We see the demand. We see the opportunities for them within our pipeline, they’re the fastest speed towards power. I think not only do the customers want it, but the grids that we’re looking at building out, they want us to bring power in additional to consuming from the grid. Right? They want us to help offset as well. The reason why we don’t include behind-the-meter opportunities in our development pipeline is because we feel like those megawatts are a bit disingenuous. What do I mean by that? What I mean is, if we have a piece of land, we have an interconnect on there in terms of substation transmission capacity, we have a pipeline, frankly, we can put as many megawatts as the pipeline can support from a gas perspective. Right?
Riverbend could be a multi-gigawatt site that we put into our pipeline. The numbers that we would have in our pipeline would far exceed the over 8 gigawatts that we have today if we included behind-the-meter opportunities. The way we see those, similar to M&A, where if they become real and they become executed or contracted, you see that as additional catalysts that come in that are not as trackable. We’re working on a ton of opportunities on both behind-the-meter and M&A across different functions of the team today.
Stephen Byrd, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thanks so much for taking my question.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Appreciate it. Thank you.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Brett Knoblauch with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.
Brett Knoblauch, Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald: Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question. I know Greg Abbott sent a letter yesterday that had a lot of people asking some questions. I’m curious to your thoughts on it, to what extent is kind of Beacon Point grandfathered, and how does maybe that change your view of where you’re looking to grow the portfolio from a pipeline perspective?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: I think across the board in the U.S. today, more and more politicians are going to want to make sure that ratepayers and their voters feel protected. We saw the letter, and we trust the legislative process. As we’re reviewing, we’re prepared to work with the PUC and ERCOT to implement this process. We feel very confident in the package we put forward during the batch process. A lot of the things that we have put forward aligns with many of the points that Governor Abbott raised. That includes grid reliability, water usage, environmental considerations, noise, traffic, emergency, and other community protections.
We actually were one of the ones that voluntarily participated in the PUE survey that they had come out, and we gave them all of the information on Beacon Point around the water and power usage of the site, both operating and under construction. We plan to do the same exact thing with the governor’s request. As we continue to develop across the pipeline, when we look at places like Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, kind of the southeast corridor, and places across the U.S., there are some states where they want the business of data centers. They also want to make sure that their communities feel protected because there’s so much FUD and noise out there in the system today.
There are other states that are a bit harder to do work in. Those were a bit more sensitive in terms of entering and investing significant development capital. Overall, I think you’ll just see this as a common part of development, which is you have to do the work to have people feel comfortable that you’re not just saying that, "Hey, we have a closed-loop water system. We’re not going to use water that cools the chips." Right? We actually pay our way when it comes to energy and for our structure upgrades or energy capacity. Most of these things we are doing no matter what because we have to in order to develop this infrastructure at scale. I think it’s just putting in a bit more process to make people feel comfortable.
Overall, I think it’s actually very healthy for the U.S. because right now, without that, it’s just a he said, she said, and people are scared, local politicians are scared to do what they think is best for the communities from a kind of ratepayer tax perspective impact, but also from kind of a general sentiment perspective. I think you see different politicians trying to enact this in different ways to make their voters feel comfortable. On the other extreme, you have some states that kind of are just extremely against it. I think Texas is one where they’re just trying to make sure that the way that this capacity is coming online is thoughtful to the ecosystem and the community, so there’s not a huge reversion, we’re able to continue to scale.
Brett Knoblauch, Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald: Awesome. Thank you. Maybe if I can just follow up on Riverbend. I know there’s a lot of talk about behind the meter. Curious from a timing perspective, how quickly could behind the meter at that site get set up? Would that come before maybe additional power delivery from Entergy or, you guys might have commented on this, I might have missed this, but just walk me through how Riverbend expands from here via grid or behind the meter or directly from Entergy. Thank you.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: If we think about building one, it gets built really across 2027. Each data hall gets handed over. In order for building two to start, and to start delivering data halls, it’s kind of on the back of building one. Right? You think kind of end of 2027 that capacity has the opportunity to come online. When we think about behind-the-meter generation, we have a bunch of solutions we’re looking at Riverbend and other campuses as well, in terms of what is that generation. Some of those solutions, the power actually can get there faster than the data center can get built. That’s obviously not all solutions.
When we think about Riverbend, it’s a really unique environment because we have such a supportive state and local legislative and administrative kind of community where they want us to bring this business in and to expand. We have an amazing workforce of subcontractors there in all the skilled trades. When we look at Riverbend, the gas is there. There’s plenty of access on the pipelines. We’ve already confirmed that. Obviously Entergy we’re working with as well around capacity. I actually see a world where you might see some behind-the-meter generation capacity kind of working in concert with Entergy grid-connected capacity.
Brett Knoblauch, Analyst, Cantor Fitzgerald: Awesome. Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question comes from the line of Darren Aftahi with Lucid Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Darren Aftahi, Analyst, Lucid Capital Markets: Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. On your exclusive energy basket in your release, the roughly 1.9 gigs, could you characterize maybe where are those sites, brownfield, greenfield, just how you would maybe also characterize geographic and community risk? Asher, you were talking about the governor’s letter as well. Thanks.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Happy to do so. We’re pretty diversified. I think the best way to think about our company, and I’ll take one step back and talk through how we develop. When we think about each stage in the development pipeline, and again, to remind folks, these are greenfield opportunities. Primarily we’re finding land, we’re finding interconnect. A lot of the M&A opportunities that we have that fall into people who have already developed a greenfield to a certain stage or brownfield opportunities, those opportunities are not included in this pipeline. We have a whole team working on those, and behind the meter is not included. As we think through how we build a team, we have multiple teams across five different ISOs. We split the U.S. into five sections. Each section incorporates a certain set of ISOs, and we have different teams.
Think of them as Citadel pods. Each pod has a budget. They have a group of individuals within their team, and they go and they develop. We have a bunch of these pods across these five regions and across each region. Capacity under diligence is the pod under their budgets go and start putting in land options, interconnect agreement studies, pre-construction work, site development surveys, geotechs, and so forth. When we get to capacity and exclusivity, there’s a line of sight on power in addition to obviously the land control and path towards permitting as well. As everyone knows, we’ve really been working through the Illinois and Logan County process with one of our sites.
Local community support is paramount as we think about sites that go from diligence into exclusivity and our confidence level in order to spend the resources and the work to make sure we have the support. Because otherwise, exclusivity is where we have a lot of teams working on those projects and bringing them to development where we’re comfortable in the ability to commercialize those projects. That’s why we deploy more capital and more investment into them. As we think about the overall pipeline, we’re pretty well diversified across the U.S., across multiple states, multiple ISOs, and do not have a heavy concentration in one area. I think one, that was done by design early on.
Our belief was the U.S. is a pretty big area. Instead of having one team be spread thin, was build these separate pods in this incentive structure with different experts across the U.S. and different ISOs. I think that’s worked out based on the overall concentration risk in the market today, where we’re able to say, "All right, you know what? This situation is happening. It’s slowing down a little bit. That’s okay. We have these other opportunities that continue to progress." We’re pretty grateful for that and having built the platform day one to support that. That’s where you see the reason why we’re investing into this growth at SG&A, the magnitude of these opportunities are so large. Having amazing people to be able to scale our ability to capture this opportunity, we think is a no-brainer.
Frankly, I wish I would’ve done it even earlier. I remember when about two years ago, I had a meeting with one of the former CEOs of the largest energy utility in the U.S., we were really talking about the analogies behind data center development versus renewable development. They arguably were one of the most successful renewable developers, actually a person that ran Mark’s former shop. A big comment was around scale. You need to find land, you need to find interconnects. We really got comfort in that once we felt like we had a repeatable platform and we had that customer demand that was repeatable as well, we started really scaling over the last couple of quarters, but could have done it even earlier than that before the first deal was announced. I think our platform feels very healthy. It’s very diversified.
The current platform we disclosed to the public is only one subset of the overall platform internally that we work on. The main reason is authenticity of those numbers. We can have that platform look really big based on all the M&A conversations we’re having, based on all the behind-the-meter conversations we’re having, but we have a higher threshold to disclosing those because we want those to essentially be near complete to be able to share those to the market rather than early stage where it just becomes brag-a-lot numbers, which is not our goal with sharing these pipeline numbers.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Stephen Glagola with KBW. Please go ahead.
Stephen Glagola, Analyst, KBW: Hey, thanks for the question. Sorry if I missed this earlier on the call. Asher Genoot and Sean Glennan, can you maybe provide more detail on how you intend to fund the equity component associated with the Beacon Point phase 2 lease? Sean, I’m just curious maybe to get your broader thoughts on what you’re seeing in the funding markets today on the debt side, has anything changed in terms of project financing availability over the last few months? Thank you.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Yeah, I’ll take the first part of that and I’ll pass it over to Sean. If we were looking at doing the exact same structure that we did from River Bend Building 1 to Beacon Point Building 1, in terms of a 16-year IG bond, et cetera. The equity commitment that we would have, we have the balance sheet to be able to support that, and we’ve really thought about, all right, how do we think about equity dilution relative to that? What we’ve shared from Beacon Point Building 1 to Beacon Point Building 2 was that we really focused on first principles of what made that deal strong, and how can we make it better and how do we make it stronger. I think from Building 1 to Building 2, we were able to improve metrics across the whole board.
When we look at Beacon Point Building 2 now, which is the third financing, we’re taking that same first principles, which is how do we really think about our overall cost of capital across the different mechanisms that we have, and how do we structure something that’s the most accretive in terms of long-term kind of creation. We’ll share more on that in the coming weeks. As we think about the optionality of what we have with the balance sheet that we have today, the different financing counterparties that want to continue to support the story, we’re pretty excited and confident as we think about growth of the platform, that what we’re working on is going to be interesting and innovative, similar to Building 1 at River Bend and Building 1 at Beacon Point. Sean, pass it over to you.
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: Yeah, thanks, Asher. Thanks for the question, Steve. Look, the market remains open. It remains receptive to a lot of different paper that’s out there, I think you’re seeing a lot of supply come, that is for certain. I think there’s going to be a real discernment for investors, this is in our conversations with them, with bankers whom we talk to all the time, on really quality leases, quality operators, quality developers, and quality structures. We spend a lot. This is why we are so principled and why we take so much time structuring the debt deals that we do. We want to make sure that they’re going to be attractive to the market and that they’ll get a lot of receptivity, because ultimately we want to make sure that we’re being good stewards of bondholder capital as well.
I think we’ve built a pretty good following in the fixed income markets. For those who have executed well, I think the market will remain open and provide pretty good pricing and whatnot. I think it’s really going to depend on what. It’ll be very issuer by issuer, I think, going forward. We’re really excited about where we sit in that ladder.
Stephen Glagola, Analyst, KBW: Great. Thank you, guys.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Ben Sommers with BTIG. Please go ahead.
Ben Sommers, Analyst, BTIG: Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Asher, you mentioned M&A opportunities. Curious on what you are seeing in that market. Are there any specific power markets where you’re seeing more acquisition opportunities?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: We have a lot of inbound every day from everywhere. I think probably 70% of those opportunities are a bit of a waste of time, and 30% are interesting projects. We’ve actually expanded the team to really diligence and vet through those opportunities. It’s across the board. Look, I think right now everyone’s seeing the data center momentum. You have every person who has a piece of land and a transmission line that falls across that piece of land thinking that they can build a data center there. There’s other developers that have really done the work, gotten the interconnection agreements, but are unable to get the capital to build, don’t have the track record to actually get confidence with a tenant to actually go and execute and build the campus either.
I think the three leases that we’ve announced, the platform that we’re building, has actually created a lot of good reputational credibility out there, and we’re having a lot of inbound. As we think about M&A, we’re also, as we look at the first couple of projects we developed, our development risk capital out there is pretty low relative to how we think about development. We’re not putting out nine figures of capital on pieces of land or equipment. Really most of our capital is deployed post-commercialization. We’re talking about tens of millions on the land and some long lead time equipment on both of these projects before we actually commercialize. But those dollars really were backwards weighted closer to negotiation of the agreement before the final ink was signed.
As we think about some of these M&A opportunities, a lot of developers and brokers and bankers know we’re not the firm that will necessarily pay the highest dollar upfront to take all the risk, and we’re comfortable with those opportunities going to other developers. But folks who come to us and say, "You know what? I’ll take right of way risk. I believe in your ability to execute and make this possible, and maybe I’ll take some kind of back-end economics on those opportunities as you commercialize them." So from our perspective is, okay, if we create the value and those are triggers for unlocking value for some of these developers that brought the opportunity, that could be really interesting.
When we think about structuring, we really think about structuring them from a right of way risk perspective for Hut 8, where we believe in our ability to execute, and those sellers have to believe in Hut 8’s ability as well, then the deal works. But we’re seeing a lot of these opportunities. Teams are kind of working through them. I think today what I’m most grateful for is we can get indication around interest on sites a lot faster than two years ago. We have pretty deep relationships across the counterparties that we’ve executed leases with and a lot of the counterparties that were at the finish line when we were looking at other customers for those and tenants for those opportunities as well. We don’t just have relationships with the current tenants.
We have actually relationships with a much broader subset, we’re able to get responses on feedback much more quickly. The other element that I think has really helped us, and we’ve doubled down into this, is we’re relatively conservative when we bring opportunities to people. We tell them exactly all the work that we’ve done, the risks that we see. I think as a result, that’s created deeper trust. I think in this business, trust is paramount. Do people trust that you’re giving all the information to them very transparently? Are you trying to sell them all on a deal, or are you trying to build a partnership with them? As we think about these relationships, we think about the next five, 10 plus years. We’re never trying to sell any given opportunity.
We’re trying to work with them as partners and say, "Hey, this is the opportunity. Is this interesting for you? These are the things that we think are good. These are the things that we think may not be as good. Let’s talk through those subset of different points." As a result, M&A has become really interesting because our ability to feed back quickly, to be able to kill or drive deals forward, has allowed us to really focus on the right opportunities.
George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Super helpful. Thank you for taking my question.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of George Sutton with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.
George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Thank you. Asher, during your Q&A you talked about existing customers that have the right to new megawatts. I wanted to make sure I understood that in the context of that discussion you were talking about M&A. Are you operating on behalf of some of your customers relative to these M&A opportunities and going to market that way? Just wanted to be clear about that.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: No. When we think about some of the kind of ROFOs we have in place, it’s they get a first look at some of these opportunities and they get to say if they want them or not for the opportunities. As we think about the subset of tenants, in my mind, like six plus tenants we’re very, very close with. There’s not that many in the grand scheme of things. A lot of these opportunities, Mark, it’s still very similar. We’re not going in blind. We’re going in with two to three people in mind, and we get responses from them within days, not weeks or longer. We kind of know what people are looking for. We have a very active dialogue. As we look at M&A opportunities, we’re able to understand what tenants might have interest in that.
Is it a real demand signal? We know exactly the criteria that matter to them. Overall, feel very good on demand side of the equation, and now finding the right opportunities that we can execute on well, that is good dedication of bandwidth and resources, and the economic structures work as well. From M&A, I think a lot of how historically those opportunities would have worked is, and that’s why we didn’t really do much of it, is you would have to take a directional bet that you believed that it would work. When we think about taking that directional bet, we’re much more comfortable with greenfield because the cost basis is so much lower. Two things have changed in the recent year and a half.
One is that we are actually able to get that demand signal. If we ever have to put capital at risk, we think we can align that commitment from the tenant with the capital at risk, we’re not actually putting any capital at risk. Two is we actually have many more developers that say, "You know what? Hut 8 is a proven and trusted brand, and we believe in your ability to execute. We’re actually willing to take back-end economics on you executing rather than you having to put up the development capital." They also know how we operate, and it’s kind of off the table if they’re expecting a big payday without us actually commercializing anything.
George Sutton, Analyst, Craig-Hallum: Thanks for the clarity.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Joe Vassi with Canaccord. Please go ahead. Joe, you might be on mute. Our next question will come from the line of Brian Dobson with Clear Street Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Brian Dobson, Analyst, Clear Street Equity Research: Hey, thanks so much for taking my question. At the risk of beating a dead horse, regarding this statement from Governor Abbott, do you think that this might help wash out some of the weaker players in the queue for ERCOT and favor some of the more established players like yourself?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: I think a lot of these different initiatives are doing exactly that, right? Speaking about kind of the M&A piece, we have so much noise out there, we’re Hut 8. We’re not even ERCOT getting all of these requests to get submissions and approvals. I think a lot of that noise scares people, right? Because the true numbers of development are not actually the numbers that these utilities are getting. Those are a lot of people kind of speculatively spending tens of thousands of dollars putting an interconnection and putting a land option in and saying, "All right, I’m going to try to go sell this to the likes of a Hut 8." I think it does clear up a lot of the noise within the system. When you think about development, it increases the muscles of how do you develop well.
I think at the end of the day, it is important that as we invest into these facilities and they generate great cash, those campuses are great partners within the communities that they operate within. This kind of mindset, I think, runs pretty deep within the culture of the company. The first site that we ever built and started was actually a former DuPont sodium smelter in Niagara Falls, New York. There was a 50 MW substation there. It was a brownfield campus. We went in, we retrofitted that site, and turned it into a Bitcoin mine. When we built those, a lot of the people we hired, their parents and their grandparents worked in this DuPont factory. That factory was a core impact to that community, and it really, really made a profound impact on the people within that community.
I think as we develop these large infrastructure assets and these data centers, it’s really important to think about the impact on the communities and how do we make sure we’re building alongside those. I think a lot of the companies that are willing to invest into thinking in that way and invest into the time into talking with these communities are usually kind of platforms that are more robust, that have more scale, right? If we think about where we were five years ago when we were a much smaller development shop, we didn’t necessarily have the resources to do all of those things. Today we do. I think some of the stuff that’s coming out will kind of make it better for folks who have a more robust development ability.
I think everybody will have to navigate through these different processes as they become more mature.
Brian Dobson, Analyst, Clear Street Equity Research: Yeah. If I may, just one follow-up. There’s some concern in the broader market about CapEx spending from the hyperscalers. Is there anything in your conversations that would lead you to believe that they’re taking the foot off the gas in terms of data center development?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Demand is robust from all the conversations we’ve had.
Brian Dobson, Analyst, Clear Street Equity Research: Yeah.
Demand is real. Demand is there. Everyone wants capacity yesterday, as has been the story for the last two years since we have really dove deep into these relationships. I’m out of the office most weeks, meeting with tenants, showing campuses that we have and so forth. Demand is robust, I think part of that is because, Sean mentioned this similar to the kind of the financing side of the equation, we’ve built more reputation, more trust. Frankly, I’m not sure if demand is more robust now than it was 10 years ago, but for Hut 8, it definitely is. I think there’s a little bit of bias in these perspectives because I think we’ve built more reputational credibility alongside tenants, financing counterparties, and so forth. Today we’re right in the centerfold of all of this and see it firsthand.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: From our perspective today, demand is real. Demand is there. Every tenant will ebb and flow in terms of their demand, right? Some folks, they’ll have a lot of capacity. Their CFO will say, "Hey, let’s pause for a second." It’ll pause for a month or two, then it turns back up. We’ve seen that same story happen across the last two years. Overall, as a market, we’re seeing robust demand, and we’re seeing anyone who’s paused turn back on and that cycle ebb and flow.
Brian Dobson, Analyst, Clear Street Equity Research: Yeah. Excellent. Thanks very much.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Will Cost, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Hey, good morning. This is Will Cost on for Patrick Moley. Thanks for the question. Specifically as it relates to your gigawatt diligence agreement with Anthropic, could you give us an update on your talks and relationship with the company, and then where this sits on your list of priorities relative to maybe the 50 megawatts under development, Riverbend expansion, or the movement of any number of megawatts into development from exclusivity or diligence? Thank you.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Thanks for the question. Anthropic is a great example of a customer that needs a lot of demand and capacity to fulfill their needs. We work very closely with them, have a good relation with them. Obviously, we’re building the campus in Riverbend for them. Overall, look to continue to do work and expand with them as well. We feel very good with the relation that we built with them and have some kind of down the fairway opportunities that we’re in discussions with them and have some more novel, fun opportunities that we’re in discussion with them as well.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Chris Brendler with Rosenblatt Securities. Please go ahead.
Chris Brendler, Analyst, Rosenblatt Securities: Hey, thanks for squeezing me in and congrats on all the progress. A quick question unrelated to the data center business. Can you give us an update, your ownership and current position in American Bitcoin? Just given some of the developments there, and then how you’re thinking about your still very large Bitcoin stack. Any changes in your thought process on holding a lot of Bitcoin on your balance sheet? Thanks.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Thanks for the question, Chris. We own roughly around 54% of American Bitcoin today. American Bitcoin just had their earnings yesterday, and they had a really great operating year. Most amount of Bitcoin that was ever mined, even though Bitcoin was down. I think Bitcoin was down double digits over the last, call it one or two quarters, and margins only decreased single digit percentage points, still roughly around 50% gross margins. Overall, the operating business is strong and stronger than it’s ever been. Overall market sentiment and liquidity in Bitcoin is obviously not, and so the stock price hasn’t done as well. I actually think for a lot of the analysts on the call here today, when they first joined the Hut 8 story after the merger about two years ago, American Bitcoin is in a really similar spot, right? The underlying business is actually strong.
There’s a lot less attention and the market just isn’t there. I think overall, as we’re thinking about the opportunity, everything from an operational perspective is continuing to operate. I shared this tweet the other day that the markets are a weighing game in the long term and the voting game in the short term, and all you can control is how well you build the business to be really, really heavy and create a lot of intrinsic value. Overall, business is strong there. As we think about Hut 8’s balance sheet, I think obviously as we continue to grow and continue to become an energy infrastructure company, Bitcoin is a nice asset to have on the balance sheet. If there’s opportunistic moments where we would sell that Bitcoin and fund different initiatives, we will. Those opportunities haven’t come up yet.
We’ve been able to finance these projects, we’ve been able to not have to raise equity in recent time in order to do any of that stuff. Bitcoin on Hut 8’s balance sheet is just like another asset, just like cash. We view it. There’s no need to hold it on our balance sheet. All of our exposure on Bitcoin will be through American Bitcoin.
Chris Brendler, Analyst, Rosenblatt Securities: Okay, great. Thanks so much, and congrats again.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question will come from the line of Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.
Nick Giles, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Yeah, thanks. There’s a lot of dialogue around upward pressure on build cost, so I was curious how much of your CapEx is already secured on your contracted capacity, or are there any further contracts to negotiate with your suppliers? Can you just speak to how your procurement strategy has shifted as supply chains tighten? Thank you.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: Thanks for the question. The first two buildings, so the first Building 1 on each campus are fully contracted. 100% of long lead time bindings are contracted. GC subcontractors pricing is fixed, and that aligns with obviously the financings that we’ve done. Building 2 was cheaper than Building 1. Now, as we’re finalizing Building 3, we expect it to be cheaper than Building 2. For us, interestingly enough, I think we just continue to push what we believe is possible. I think these things can be built way more efficiently, whether it be from a design, construction, supply chain perspective. We’re using, obviously, some of the best vendors in the world. From a kind of allocation of capacity, we focus on building partnerships, not on just one-off purchases.
As a result, we actually haven’t seen a big impact when it comes to lead times, capacity and allocation and queues. At the end of the day, it’s all kind of preference and priority. With majority of suppliers that we work with, I’m directly connected at the CEO level with all of these companies. Companies that we don’t believe we can build a deep relationship with, we don’t engage deeply with. We’re talking about multinational companies that are all very excited by what we’re doing and the way we’re thinking about innovation as well. It’s not just we’re buying equipment for this campus. We’re talking about, hey, how do we push the frontier of how do we think about these developments? How do we think about integrating all of your equipment into a skidded design?
Overall, I know there’s kind of this talk and this noise around supply chain and costs, at Hut, we’re hyper-focused on being able to drive those down and build more efficiently. That’s kind of core. When we think about what it takes to be successful, we obviously need amazing financing. We’ve talked a lot about that today, and continue to challenge what we do and continue to improve on structuring and terms. We do the same exact thing on the other side of the house from an operations design procurement perspective. This goes more overall to the kind of the thesis and principle and values in which we operate. As of today, we’re looking to continue to improve on the builds and the cost of this infrastructure.
We want to improve on time to build, want to improve on cost to build, building after building.
Nick Giles, Analyst, B. Riley Securities: Super helpful, Asher. I appreciate the color.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: Our next question comes from the line of Allen Klee with Maxim Group. Please go ahead.
Allen Klee, Analyst, Maxim Group: Good morning. On a site level basis for the digital infrastructure segment, as the leases fully scale up, how do you think about gross margins and adjusted EBITDA margins?
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: You’ll see those increase. Sean will share some of the numbers as well on a net debt basis. If we think about roughly $27 billion of contracted revenue, that’s about $1.7 billion per year of cash flow that comes in. Because these are triple net leases, all the costs in running those facilities are actually passed through to the tenant, right? The majority of that $1.75 drops to the bottom line. That’s why we showed kind of a 99% NOI margin. Really your cost on that capital is just servicing principal and interest on the bonds that we have outstanding. Sean, anything to add there?
Sean Glennan, CFO, Hut 8: No, I think that’s right. If you think about the actual margins on the project there, we’ve had 99%, 100% basically margins on the projects. I think we’re going to stay away from guidance for the future years. The other thing I would say is we’re going to continue to have a very keen eye towards what our SG&A is and making sure that we’re investing in maintenance and, or excuse me, growth and not just maintenance. As Asher says a lot, we could run the existing company with a lot fewer people, a lot fewer expenses. We’re going to maintain a keen eye on that and make sure that we don’t have, as Asher mentioned before, SG&A creep.
As you think about overall margins for the company, it’s something we’re very focused on, both at the lease level and at the corporate level.
Asher Genoot, CEO, Hut 8: When I look out into the office we have here today, the majority of people in the office know that their job is for net new growth. If the job was, let’s run this public company, let’s run these three buildings and data center leases that we’ve announced, we can have significantly less people, because more than 50% of the people out here are focused on net new growth, and not kind of keeping the lights on. That’s really important. So, look, I think from a cash flow perspective, it’s relatively easy to model. You guys know what the lease economics are. The two bonds that we’ve announced, you kind of can look at what those amortization schedules are on those bonds as well. Then you take a prediction on SG&A, and that kind of gets you your net cash flow.
Allen Klee, Analyst, Maxim Group: Thank you.
Mark Eidelman, Head of Investor Relations, Hut 8: This concludes our question and answer session and our call today. Thank you all for joining.
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