Cipher enters US wholesale power market with Ohio data center acquisition

Cipher Mining has acquired a 200-megawatt power site in Ohio called “Ulysses,” marking its first expansion outside of Texas and entry into the PJM wholesale electricity market, the largest power market in the United States.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, the 195-acre site has secured power capacity from AEP Ohio, with all required utility agreements in place, and is expected to be energized in the fourth quarter of 2027.

Cipher said the facility is suitable for high-performance computing and data center use in addition to Bitcoin (BTC) mining. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The move aims to meet growing demand from hyperscalers, large cloud computing companies such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, for data centers. “Hyperscalers are driving unprecedented demand for large-scale sites,” said Cipher CEO Tyler Page, adding that the company’s new site will give it additional capacity to expand its high-performance computing (HPC) hosting business.

Source: Cipher Mining

The deal follows a broader push by publicly listed Bitcoin miners into power, data center and manufacturing infrastructure beyond traditional mining.

Hut 8, for instance, recently signed a 15-year lease worth about $7 billion to supply 245 megawatts of AI data center capacity at its River Bend campus in Louisiana, with infrastructure provider Fluidstack as the tenant and Google backing lease payments.

A few days later, Bitdeer leased about 188,000 square feet at a logistics facility in Sparks, Nevada, to expand its US manufacturing footprint, according to The Miner Mag.

Related: How Bhutan is building a green Bitcoin economy from the ground up

Bitcoin mining hashprice puts pressure on miners

The Bitcoin mining hash price, a key measure of miner revenue per unit of computing power, has been below $40 since mid-November, a level many operators view as breakeven. The slump has forced mining companies to reassess their operating models as margins across the sector remain under pressure.

Bitcoin hash price over the past three months. Source: Hashrate Index

While many miners have sought diversification through AI and HPC demand, some are also turning to renewable energy as a way to lower costs and stabilize profitability.

Sangha Renewables recently brought a 20-megawatt solar-powered mining facility online in Ector County, Texas, while Phoenix Group launched a 30-megawatt hydro-powered operation in Ethiopia in November.

Separately, Canaan partnered with Soluna in September to deploy mining capacity at a wind-powered site in Texas and is developing adaptive mining rigs that use AI to optimize energy efficiency.

Despite the mounting pressure on mining economics, Bitcoin mining stocks have rallied sharply in 2025, signaling that public markets are increasingly focused on miners’ long-term strategic positioning rather than near-term Bitcoin production alone.

Among the top five publicly traded miners, IREN Limited is up roughly 331% year-to-date, followed by Applied Digital (246%), Cipher Mining (250%), Hut 8 (160%), and Riot Platforms (36%), according to data from Google Finance.

Iren Limited YTD stock price. Source: Google Finance

Magazine: Big questions: Would Bitcoin survive a 10-year power outage?

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