The Bitcoin (BTC) market continues to stabilize around $90,000 following a significant price recovery in the last week. Before these recent gains, the maiden cryptocurrency had undergone a heavy market correction, dropping about 36.10% from its all-time high of around $126,100.  Amid the ongoing consolidation, the latest data on Bitcoin miner activity suggests the asset may have hit a local bottom with sights now set on a sustained uptrend. 

Notably, market analyst BorisD shares on the CryptoQuant QuickTake platform an insight that suggests Bitcoin likely formed a local bottom as it dipped to $80,000 during its recent correction phase. The expert explains that this theory is confirmed by Bitcoin miners recording an underpaid status, which has historically been a strong signal in confirming a local market bottom. 

For context, Bitcoin miners become underpaid when the mining revenue, i.e., block rewards + fees, falls below miners’ average operating costs, resulting in financial stress, forced selling, and capitulation of certain miners, possibly due to bankruptcy.

Bitcoin Miners’ Economics In Influencing Market Ends

BorisD explains that Bitcoin miner profitability has been a consistent guiding metric in determining potential market tops or bottoms. For example, miner revenue in early 2024 reached intensely high levels as prices rallied strongly. This condition, created by a rise in transaction fees and block dollar value, allowed miners to become profitable to distribute supply to the market, thereby aligning early topping structures.

By mid-2024, the market had created a pattern where capitulation zones often indicated local bottoms, and severely overpaid zones matched market tops with heavy liquidity outflows. Notably, this pattern held throughout late 2024, early and mid 2025, during which miners’ revenue alternated between the overpaid and underpaid zone.

As Bitcoin’s price struggled in Q4 2025, falling to around $80,000, BorisD explains that miners experienced another deep underpaid regime that completed a capitulation cycle, exhaustion of miner-driven selling pressure, but most importantly, confirmation of price local bottom.

Bitcoin Market Overview

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $90,898 after a minor 0.64% gain in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, the daily trading volume is down 36.32% to $38.77 billion.

According to BorisD, Bitcoin miners’ profitability is expected to continue improving, provided the market price stays above $80,000. This dynamic, in turn, supports a continuation of upward price momentum, potentially pushing Bitcoin toward another market top. Although the present market cycle has displayed atypical behavior compared to previous ones, analysts remain broadly optimistic. Many expect Bitcoin not only to recover but to eventually surpass its prior six-figure valuation.

Bitcoin Magazine

IREN, Cipher Mining (CIFR) Strike Multi-Billion AI Cloud Deals with Microsoft and Amazon

IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) and Cipher Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:CIFR), Bitcoin miners pivoting to AI infrastructure providers, are making some hefty business moves today, and their stocks have been reflecting it.

IREN signed a five-year, $9.7 billion agreement with Microsoft for GPU cloud computing services. The deal gives Microsoft access to NVIDIA GB300 GPUs managed by IREN at its Childress, Texas campus, with a phased deployment of GPU capacity throughout 2026. 

The contract includes a 20% prepayment and positions IREN as a key hyperscaler partner for the first time. 

Four new liquid-cooled data centers, Horizon 1 through Horizon 4, will support 200 megawatts of critical IT load, while a separate $5.8 billion agreement with Dell Technologies covers the purchase of GPUs, servers, and associated infrastructure. 

CEO Daniel Roberts said the partnership could generate roughly $1.94 billion in annualized revenue once fully deployed. Following the announcement, IREN shares jumped more than 28% in pre-market trading. 

The stock is now up 8% in intraday trading. IREN, which has seen its Nasdaq stock surge over 500% this year, joins other AI-focused “neocloud” providers, many of which originated in cryptocurrency mining.

Cipher Mining’s deal with Amazon

Meanwhile, Cipher Mining secured a $5.5 billion, 15-year lease agreement with Amazon Web Services (NASDAQ: AMZN) to provide turnkey space and power for AI workloads.

Cipher will deliver 300 megawatts of capacity in 2026 through air- and liquid-cooled facilities in two phases, with rent starting in August 2026. Additionally, the company announced a joint venture to develop a 1-gigawatt site named “Colchis” in West Texas, in which it will hold roughly 95% equity. 

Combined with prior deals with Fluidstack and Google, Cipher’s AI hosting contracts now represent approximately $8.5 billion in lease payments. 

Cipher shares rose 15% in pre-market trading following the news. The stock is now up 14% in intraday trading. 

Bitcoin mining success with an AI twist

Bitcoin mining and crypto infrastructure stocks have seen a big rally over the past six months, and IREN Limited is a standout example. 

Investors have rewarded companies that can combine traditional bitcoin mining with scalable, revenue-generating AI or data-center services. 

In IREN’s case, the stock’s recent surge comes after a major GPU expansion and analyst upgrades, and now this new Microsoft news is helping boost the price. 

This reflects a wider market appetite for miners that offer optionality: steady bitcoin cash flows to fund new ventures, while also positioning for high-growth technology trends.

In essence, the past half-year has favored bitcoin-mining firms that can monetize excess power, land, and data-center capacity beyond mining.

The rally is less about bitcoin prices alone and more about miners evolving into hybrid tech infrastructure operators with diversified revenue streams.

This post IREN, Cipher Mining (CIFR) Strike Multi-Billion AI Cloud Deals with Microsoft and Amazon first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.