Shares of bitcoin miners Cipher Mining and CleanSpark climbed in premarket trading on Thursday after JPMorgan delivered a bullish upgrade on both names. Cipher rose about 5%, while CleanSpark added roughly 6%, as the brokerage shifted its rating on each stock to Overweight, citing a major acceleration in long-term high-performance computing (HPC) contracts across the sector. According to JPMorgan, these deals are beginning to reshape how traditional miners operate, pushing them toward becoming full-scale data center operators rather than pure-play crypto miners.
The bank raised its price target on Cipher to $18 from $12, pointing out that the recent pullback in the stock offers a much more attractive entry point for investors. JPMorgan highlighted that sector-wide deal activity has surged since late September, with both IREN and Cipher signing more than $19 billion in combined contracted revenue linked to multi-year cloud and colocation agreements. This rapid momentum, analysts said, is providing a powerful foundation for the industry’s pivot into HPC, artificial intelligence hosting, and broader data-center infrastructure services.
JPMorgan now expects miners to dedicated roughly 1.7 gigawatts of critical IT capacity to HPC by late 2026, representing about 35% of the group’s currently approved power resources. Among all operators, Cipher was described as one of the strongest and most advanced in executing this transition. The company has already secured approximately 600 megawatts of gross capacity, which is fully contracted to blue-chip tenants such as Amazon Web Services and Fluidstack, providing Cypher with a clearer revenue profile and visibility into long-term cash flows.
Despite this progress, Cipher’s stock has fallen nearly 45% from its recent highs, a drop analysts believe leaves considerable room for upside. JPMorgan added that further gains could materialize if Cipher secures new contracts, particularly at its upcoming 100-MW Stingray project, which is being positioned as a competitive HPC-ready facility.
As for CleanSpark, the upgrade reflected the bank’s decision to credit roughly 200 megawatts of critical IT capacity at the Texas site it recently acquired. This additional capacity strengthens the company’s ability to participate in the sector-wide shift toward data services just as miners look for ways to diversify beyond bitcoin revenue.
JPMorgan also adjusted its broader valuations across the mining sector. It raised its price target on IREN to $39 from $28, driven by a richer cloud-integration outlook, while trimming targets on Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms. The bank noted that weaker bitcoin prices and rising share counts are weighing on both companies, especially because they hold the largest coin inventories in the space.
The upgrade came alongside a significant increase in JPMorgan’s valuation assumptions for HPC capacity after it lowered discount rates in its cloud and colocation models. The bank now estimates that each megawatt of critical IT colocation capacity could be worth between $8 million and $17 million, with integrated cloud capacity potentially commanding up to $19 million per MW, underscoring the scale of the opportunity miners are moving toward.