Riot Platforms Sells 2,201 BTC, Gathers ~$200M to Accelerate AI Data Center Pivot

Riot Platforms quietly turned Bitcoin into concrete capex. The Colorado-based miner disclosed it sold 2,201 BTC across November and December, generating nearly $200 million in proceeds, per its December operations update. Despite trimming holdings, Riot still closed the year with 18,005 BTC—about $1.65 billion at current prices—placing it among the 10 largest publicly traded holders.

The treasury drawdown is notable for a company that sold no Bitcoin in 2024 and actually added more than $500 million worth to its stack. The latest balance sits more than 1,300 BTC below October’s 19,324 BTC and just 293 BTC above year-end 2024. Details of the sales weren’t provided, and the firm didn’t immediately comment; earlier this year, management framed any BTC dispositions as funding “ongoing growth and operations.”

What’s changed is the target of that growth. Riot has been reframing itself around power and infrastructure, with Bitcoin mining functioning as a monetization bridge to higher-value compute. In its Q3 materials, the company described a power-led strategy: use mining to monetize a large power portfolio while building out data centers, with the aim of ultimately shifting megawatts toward AI and cloud workloads.

That lens makes the ~$200 million figure more telling. VanEck’s Matthew Sigel noted that the amount roughly matches Riot’s guided capital spend for the first 112 MW core/shell at its Corsicana campus, slated for completion in Q1 2027. In practical terms, one winter’s worth of BTC sales can underwrite Phase 1 of an AI data center pivot without tapping equity at unfavorable multiples.

Here’s the trade-off as I see it. Using BTC as self-financing preserves control over timing and cost of capital, which can matter when power interconnects, permits, and construction cycles are the gating factors—not hashprice. It also aligns with how investors often value infrastructure: contracted power and compute tend to command steadier multiples than commodity-linked mining cash flows. On the other hand, selling into a rising BTC tape carries opportunity cost if the next leg higher outpaces the return on data center investment. Riot’s 18,005 BTC treasury helps balance that—some upside is retained while capex is advanced.

The technology leap isn’t trivial. AI-oriented capacity at 112 MW implies high-density racks, advanced thermal design (increasingly liquid cooling), and grid orchestration that differs from interruptible mining loads. Miners have advantages—site control, power trading experience, and curtailment optionality—but service-level expectations in AI hosting are tighter. Execution risk shifts from ASIC fleet management to uptime guarantees, supply chains for GPUs, and customer contracts with hyperscalers or model operators.

Riot isn’t alone in reading the same demand signal. CleanSpark and Marathon Digital have outlined strategies to include AI or cloud-oriented builds. Bitfarms has said it will fully exit BTC mining to focus on AI. Cipher Mining and Hut 8 have signed billion-dollar AI agreements reportedly backstopped by Google—evidence that capital and counterparties are available when sites and power are real. The scramble suggests competition for transformers, substations, and fiber will intensify.

Investors seem comfortable, for now. RIOT shares closed up 1.3% on the day and have gained more than 23% over six months, ending at $14.98. Bitcoin itself is up nearly 6% over the last week, recently trading around $92,773. If the cycle holds, miners that can convert megawatts into contracted compute could smooth revenue while keeping optionality through a residual BTC treasury. Over-rotating too quickly risks missing crypto’s convexity; moving too slowly risks ceding AI capacity to faster power developers. Riot’s sale-funded runway buys time to thread that needle ahead of the 2027 Corsicana milestone.