Been looking at some interesting opportunities in the sub-$50 space lately, and there's a couple names worth paying attention to if you're thinking about 2026 positioning.

First up is Cipher Mining. What caught my eye here is the structural advantage they're sitting on. Everyone's talking about the AI infrastructure bottleneck, and this company is literally building the power backbone that the big tech names desperately need. Morgan Stanley's projecting a 44 gigawatt shortage by 2028, which means the capacity Cipher has lined up could trade at serious premiums down the line.

Here's what makes it interesting: they've already locked in deals with Amazon and Alphabet. We're talking 300 megawatts allocated to Amazon alone, plus 244 megawatts to Fluidstack. That's less than 20% of their total pipeline being utilized, so there's massive room for expansion. The company wrapped Q3 2025 with $71 million in crypto revenue and $1.2 billion in cash, which gives them real runway to scale. The stock's been range-bound for a bit because the revenue from these AI data centers hasn't fully materialized yet - they're still finishing out sites. But once those deals start flowing revenue, the math changes pretty quickly. It's one of those stocks under $50 where the growth story is still ahead of you.

Then there's SoFi, which is a different kind of play but equally compelling. Yeah, the stock's down nearly 30% year to date, but the fundamentals are actually accelerating. Q4 2025 revenue jumped 37% year over year, and they just relaunched crypto trading in late December. Within 10 days, over 63,000 customers had already bought crypto on the platform. That's not nothing.

What I like about SoFi is the diversification angle. Crypto is the new growth engine, sure, but they're also seeing 30% growth in loan interest revenue and building a serious deposit base with 13.7 million members. The CEO made it pretty clear they're moving aggressively into crypto and blockchain, which should position them well for the next cycle. Even if Bitcoin takes longer to recover than some expect, SoFi's got enough going on across their product suite that they can still deliver solid returns. Another stocks under $50 situation where you're getting multiple growth vectors in one position.

The thing about lower-priced stocks is there's psychological power in owning whole shares, but more importantly, these two have legitimate long-term catalysts. Cipher's sitting on an energy crisis that's only getting worse as AI demand scales. SoFi's crypto expansion is just beginning, and their core banking business is humming. Both are trading at valuations that give you room to work with. Worth keeping on your radar if you're building positions for the next leg up.