CoinShares: Miners Won't Return from AI Even as BTC Recovers

Hut 8 has closed a $1.07 billion four-year senior secured revolving credit facility, strengthening its corporate liquidity. The facility provides committed capital at a drawn margin ranging from SOFR plus 150 to 200 basis points, based on the company's consolidated total debt-to-market-capitalization ratio, with an initial margin of SOFR plus 175 basis points at closing. Subject to customary conditions, borrowings can be drawn as needed and repaid without prepayment penalties. HUT shares fell 1.7% premarket.

Darkfost, an analyst at on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, noted on X on the 28th that the estimated total demand for Bitcoin has deteriorated to a cumulative negative 171,000 BTC over the past 30 days. According to him, futures market demand shrank sharply from 164,000 BTC to 3,000 BTC, while spot demand came in at negative 174,000 BTC. Even with solid inflows into ETFs, spot demand has been unable to climb out of negative territory. The total demand estimate is the combined figure of this futures and spot demand. In contrast to the deteriorating demand indicators, the Bitcoin price has risen from 74,000 dollars to 84,000 dollars over the past 15 days, a gain of about 13.5 percent. He pointed to the fact that demand estimates are falling while the price continues to rise, flagging the disconnect between the market and demand.

Riot Platforms fully prepaid and terminated its up to $200 million secured credit facility with Coinbase Credit on September 21, 2026. The bitcoin miner's shares have pulled back 2.04% over the last day and 3.16% across the week, though the stock remains up 21.12% over 30 days and 62.43% year to date, with a 30.02% one-year total shareholder return and a 146.52% three-year total shareholder return offset by a five-year total shareholder return down 11.88%. On the most followed narrative, Riot screens below an implied fair value of about $32.40 against a last close of $23, a gap that puts the focus on how the stock might balance high growth assumptions with ongoing losses and execution risk. The company's aggressive build-out of a scalable data center business leverages its extensive, readily available power capacity in high-demand regions, positioning it to benefit from surging demand for AI and cloud computing infrastructure. Riot still faces real pressure if Bitcoin prices weaken again or if data center leases at Rockdale and Corsicana fail to ramp as modeled.