In a research note released late Thursday, Cantor Fitzgerald said Core Scientific (CORZ) could acquire more than $30 per share with potential acquisitions by Cloud Computing Giant Core Wave.
This is almost double the current level, just above $16.
The note came in a few hours later Wall Street Journal Cloud AI calculation company CoreWeave has reportedly undergoing high-level consultations again to acquire Core Scientific, following the failed offer of $5.75 per share in 2024.
Corz’s shares skyrocketed 33% to close over $16 on Thursday, but Cantor believes it still undervalues the company by at least 50%.
At the heart of the Bull incident is 12-year, $3.5 billion infrastructure rating score science, signed by CoreWeave in 2024, offering 200 megawatts of AI capacity.
Cantor evaluates lease streams at $24 per share using the conservative 15x profit typical of traditional data center REITs. Adding an additional $11.70/share for the exchange value of Corz’s 570MW power infrastructure reveals an upside case.
BTC -AI Pivot
However, Cantor is not the only one who argues that the calculated power used to calculate numbers to minify BTC could be used more efficiently for AI.
Rittenhouse Research, a new fintech and AI-focused company, released a report in May, claiming that the most successful crypto companies have not doubled Bitcoin. Instead, they are pivoting to become AI infrastructure providers.
When Galaxy Digital purchased the Helios Data Center in late 2022, it seemed like a rescue for struggling miners, but it turned out to be a strategic AI asset as the rise of ChatGPT and LLMS surged in demand for data center space, Rittenhouse pointed out.
“The infrastructure used to minify digital gold is suitable for processing AI algorithms,” wrote Rittenhouse at the time.
At the heart of the discussion is the belief that AI, unlike BTC mining, produces stable, long-term cash flow.
According to Rittenhouse, the future profitability of BTC mining also depends on mining companies being able to design chips that allow each cycle to be designed significantly more efficiently to explain Halben.
However, not all pivots away from BTC are successful
Cantor, and the market, on a massive scale, are nostalgic for potential pivots in Core Scientific, but not all pivots away from BTC mining do this well.
As Coindesk recently reported, BIT Digital has dumped its Bitcoin rig and is all-in-Ethereum staking, with the market pushing stocks down 15% during Thursday’s trading session in New York.
Canaan once wanted to diversify into AI hardware, but after failing to acquire traction, he closed the chip unit completely. That inventory has fallen nearly 75% in the past six months and closed at 63 cents on Thursday.
But Core Scientific has found the middle path and leveraged the footprint of mining building to leverage the over $100 billion AI infrastructure boom.
If Cantor’s paper proves correct, CoreWeave’s second offer to Corz could look very different from what we made last year, potentially marking a new blueprint for other sectors.
Neither CoreWeave nor Core Scientific publicly commented on the issue.