As fears mount that the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble has burst, Wall Street deals are being kept alive by a fundamental problem: bitcoin miners and data center developers still require large amounts of power.
“M&A work is still ongoing as people still need power,” Joe Nardini, head of investment banking at B. Riley Securities, said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Nardini said the demand for power from bitcoin miners remains “huge”, but added that the pull from AI and high-performance computing (HPC) is “even bigger”, with data center and mining clients reporting continued demand for GPU-ready facilities.
After the bitcoin halving cut rewards in half, miners faced a severe margin squeeze even with prices near or above $100,000 and increasingly turned to hosting AI and high-performance computing (HPC) hardware in their existing data centers. This helped fuel sharp gains in some BTC mining stocks this year as AI hype swept the market.
Read more: GPU Gold Rush: Why Bitcoin Miners are Driving AI’s Expansion
Earlier in 2025, rising concerns about artificial intelligence and high valuations erased significant market value from big tech names, including Nvidia ( NVDA ) and other AI adopters, as investors took profits and reassessed whether prices had outperformed fundamentals.
AI infrastructure specialist CoreWeaves ( CRWV ) stock also retreated and is now more than 50% below its June peak.
Does this mean the AI trend is over? Nardini doesn’t think so, and he has a simple logic behind this that he asks managers: Make clients have demand for the data center capacity they have built? “Yes.” Do they have tenants? “Yes.” Are they good tenants? “Yes.” Do they get good prices? “Yes.” Across multiple conversations, he said the message has been consistent: “So the demand is still there.”
In fact, Hut 8 shares rose as much as 20% last week after signing a 15-year, $7 billion lease with Fluidstack for 245 megawatts of IT capacity at the River Bend campus.
“Despite the recent sell-off, these companies have been well rewarded with higher valuation multiples and the ability to raise capital at attractive valuations and terms,” he said.
Inside the conclusion of the agreement
This Demand is still supporting valuations and increasingly M&A negotiations, according to Nardini.
In competitive situations with high-quality power and viable locations, he said, dollars per megawatt (an economic measure of value for each megawatt of electricity) look “very attractive.” He stated that a process involved a valuation of over $400,000 per megawatt, with the potential to reach $450,000 per megawatts, depending on the outcome of the negotiations. In fact, he’s seen previous deals priced as high as $500,000 to $550,000 apiece. megawatts.
However, demand for distressed or less desirable locations has not gone away and still draws “lowball” bids, sometimes $100,000-$250,000 apiece. megawatts, from buyers who like the power but reject the market or site quality.
So who are these buyers and sellers?
According to Nardini, buyers include hyperscalers (large technology companies that provide cloud computing infrastructures), AI firms and bitcoin miners, while the seller universe expands beyond crypto-native players.
He has seen deal processes involving old industrial facilities, such as a 160-year-old facility, where the primary attraction is power, even though the market is not large. In another case, he said a private seller of a similar type of asset drew interest from about 25 potential buyers seeking NDAs, including bitcoin miners, hyperscalers and AI companies.
This dynamic creates an unusual strategic ramification for asset owners. Sell to a hyperscaler or developer, or try becoming a developer yourself.
Nardini said he’s seeing industrial companies with older, idle or near-idle facilities that have power consider selling into the AI/HPC and Bitcoin ecosystem.
He cited another example involving a private customer repurposing older office blocks for modular power capacity, “building 30 megawatt units at a clip,” and now looking for additional funding to expand.
In at least one negotiation, he said, a tenant was even prepared to prepay rent before completion, an illustration, in his view, of how scarce desirable capacity remains.
No need to worry yet
Looking into 2026, Nardini said the setup still favors risk assets if rates fall, calling it a potential “risk-on environment,” which will be positive for deal-making in his industry.
He acknowledged that he may be “talking his book a little bit,” but said the operational reality he’s hearing from executives keeps him constructive: the tenants are there, prices remain strong, and if one customer doesn’t take a site, “someone else will.”
His caveat to the positive sentiment is simple: If developers can’t lease what they build or can’t get the price they need, now would be the time to worry. Because now he says he doesn’t hear it. “The bones of the business remain intact,” he said.
He ended with a blunt assessment of the mood.
“Demand for power and AI HPC data center capacity continues unabated. Developers with data center capacity have demand from more creditworthy tenants at good prices, so the core economics of the business remain intact.”
Nardini said buyers are still hungry for energy and sellers are seeing good valuations for their assets. This further strengthens his conviction.
“The AI trade is still alive as of December 17, 2025,” he said.
Read more: Amazon joins AI arms race as crypto and risk asset fears rise
