Anthropic pulls out $19 billion and “keeps” a Bitcoin mining firm

Author: Mind of Computing Power

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On Monday, July 6, 2026, during the early trading session, the stock price of Bitcoin miner TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF) directly gapped up and opened higher, surging 15% before the market even opened.

What ignited the market was a 20-year long-term lease.

Anthropic, an AI giant that builds large models and has been battling OpenAI day after day, went to sign a lease with TeraWulf.

This lease has two core numbers.

The first is duration: a full 20 years.

The second is scale: IT load capacity of 401 megawatts (MW).

The location is a park in Kentucky called “Justified Data.”

This 20-year contract is expected to bring TeraWulf $19 billion in contracted revenue, which means that over the next 20 years, there will be roughly $1 billion in annual inflows.

With a super-long deal from an AI giant, locking in cash-flow expectations for the next 20 years—this is the direct reason behind the surge in TeraWulf’s stock price.

I. Signing long-term orders while selling assets

On the same day the $19 billion mega-deal was announced, TeraWulf also sold an asset.

They sold 50.1% equity in a joint venture project in Abernathy, Texas, for about $530 million, at a premium, to an investment group led by Fluidstack.

This Texas project was newly established in 2025 and is planned to have a capacity of 168 megawatts. It was originally also meant to build AI data centers.

On one side, they bind top-tier customers like Anthropic; on the other, they sell off the joint venture project to cash out.

These two moves look opposite, but the logic is consistent:

The Texas project is a joint venture, so profits and say-so must be shared.

But the Kentucky project is fully owned and controlled by TeraWulf, and they directly secured Anthropic.

TeraWulf’s CEO Paul Prager has publicly said that the core strategy is to own and operate infrastructure themselves, directly controlling the long-term development of the park.

So their plan is clear: sell the joint venture project at a premium to get cash back, then invest all of it into their wholly owned Kentucky site, focusing on serving Anthropic, the mega customer that can pay $19 billion.

When the two moves are combined, TeraWulf’s strategic focus officially shifts—from a Bitcoin miner to specializing in top-tier AI facilities.

II. Don’t sell computing power—just rent the land; the miner’s ace card

In fact, in terms of pivoting from Bitcoin mining to making money from AI, TeraWulf is not the first.

Industry incumbents such as IREN, Core Scientific, and Hut 8 are also transforming.

There are mainly two modes for miner transformations:

One is like IREN—buying GPUs to build an AI cloud, renting it directly to major customers like Microsoft.

The other is like TeraWulf—only renting out the site and power, while customers bring their own servers.

TeraWulf chooses to be a “big landlord,” providing only physical space and power that meet AI standards, regardless of the servers.

Right now, the AI industry is short on both ends: chips and power are tight.

But power is an even tougher long-term bottleneck, because large-model training consumes extremely large amounts of electricity. In the short term, the US power grid simply cannot expand; transformers are queued for three to five years, and 30% to 50% of 2026 data center projects have to be pushed to 2028.

That’s why AI giants sign long-term leases everywhere (Build-to-suit). At its core, it’s about grabbing physical slots for power and land.

This is the biggest ace up Bitcoin miners’ sleeves.

A few years ago, for mining, they already obtained existing power connection access and land, and they went through the cumbersome grid approval process.

Anthropic signing this $19 billion, 20-year long-term lease mainly means locking in the land and power rights in Kentucky that TeraWulf already has in hand.

Good locations and good grid capacity—if you don’t lock them in now, they will only become more expensive and more scarce later.

III. The $19 billion sits behind an 18-month vacuum period

The sexy part is the long-term revenue of $19 billion. But the contract contains a hard time gap.

For this Kentucky park, initial deliveries are scheduled for the second half of 2027, and full operations won’t be until early 2028.

But it is July 2026 now.

That means that for at least the next year, TeraWulf cannot obtain material operating revenue from this contract.

During the construction period, however, every step requires spending money: leveling land, designing data center rooms, negotiating the power grid, installing cooling, and so on.

So they are rushing to sell the Texas joint venture project. This deal’s total consideration is about $530 million, with cashing out about $450 million of investment.

After all, early-stage infrastructure is a bottomless pit of burning cash.

On the other hand, the value of this 20-year long-term lease is tied to Anthropic’s own financial health.

Anthropic is a top AI company, but developing large models is itself a cash-draining elimination race.

A 20-year lease requires the tenant to have very strong long-term survival capability.

Public information does not break down the profit margin and cost structure behind the $19 billion.

And today’s market frenzy is buying expectations of future delivery being realized.

When TeraWulf’s name was first created, it was probably meant to evoke a “wolf at the trillion-level.”

But now it seems more like a real-estate wolf.

Not mining anymore. Switching to collecting rent.

In the wave of miners transforming into AI, the most valuable assets have become very clear.

At the end of the computing-power anxiety, core competition has returned to the most traditional business: acquire a piece of land, and bring in electricity.