Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Could Look to Acquire a Hyperscaler, Clear Street Says

Hut 8's (HUT) new subsidiary, American Bitcoin Corp., a partnership between the mining company and the Trump family, could be spun out, allowing the company to focus on data center hosting, broker Clear Street said in a report Monday.

The broker noted that the new unit will be included in the bitcoin miner's financials, but the "businesses could be separated, allowing HUT to focus on high-margin data center hosting revenue."

Hut 8 is expected to secure more power and expand its data center hosting business, the report said, and the "potential to secure a hyperscaler" is a key catalyst for the company.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are merging their firm, American Data Centers, with American Bitcoin, a new mining venture, taking a 20% stake in the company. The remaining 80% will be owned by Hut 8, which is contributing almost 61,000 mining machines to the new entity.

Core Scientific's (CORZ) deal with cloud computing firm CoreWeave led to a re-rating of the sector last year, as investors warmed to the idea of bitcoin miners pivoting to artificial intelligence and high performance computing (HPC).

Hut 8 is projected to enter a phase of considerable growth, starting in the second half of the year, "driven by the energization of the BITMAIN Colocation agreement," the report added.

Clear Street has a buy rating on Hut 8 shares with a $23 price target. The shares were over 4% higher at $12.10 in early trading.

Investment bank KBW noted that Eric Trump will serve as the chief strategy officer of American Bitcoin, which could be a large positive given his "commitment to the industry as well as his obvious relationships."

KBW has an outperform rating on the stock with a $30 price target.