Have you ever watched a stock you liked absolutely melt in front of your eyes and still felt that little voice in your head whispering “this might actually be the buy of the year”? That’s exactly where we are with Hive Digital Technologies right now.
The numbers are brutal on the surface. From the October peak near $7.80, HIVE has been cut in half and then some – down over 53% at its recent low around $3.50. It’s painful, it’s ugly, and it’s happening to pretty much every name that touches Bitcoin mining these days. But dig even slightly deeper and something interesting starts to appear: the smartest analysts on the street aren’t running for the exits. They’re doubling down.
Why the Entire Mining Sector Got Hammered (Again)
Let’s be honest – if you’ve been around crypto for more than one cycle, this movie feels familiar. Bitcoin rips to new all-time highs, mining stocks leverage up 5-10x in a matter of months, everyone declares the supercycle has arrived, and then… reality shows up.
This time the reality check came in the form of a roughly 20% drawdown in Bitcoin from its recent top above $108,000. When the underlying asset drops hard and fast, the highly leveraged mining sector gets crushed twice – once from lower coin prices and again from the market repricing the risk premium on these names.
Hive didn’t fall alone. Core Scientific dropped more than 60% from its highs. IREN gave back over a third in weeks despite signing that massive Microsoft deal everyone was cheering about. Bitfarms, Cipher, Marathon – pick a ticker, the story is roughly the same. When Bitcoin sneezes, the miners catch pneumonia.
But Something Different Is Happening This Cycle
Here’s where it gets interesting. In previous cycles, when miners got destroyed, most of them stayed destroyed until the next bull market. This time a handful of management teams decided they weren’t going to wait around for the next halving to save them.
They looked at their buildings full of power contracts and empty floor space and asked a simple question: why keep buying ASICs that become obsolete every few years when the same infrastructure can run GPUs for artificial intelligence workloads at much higher margins?
Hive Digital was one of the earliest and most aggressive movers on this thesis. And the latest numbers show the pivot is actually working.
The Numbers Behind the AI Bet
Second quarter results came in hotter than most people realize. Revenue hit $87 million against expectations around $80 million. Traditional Bitcoin mining still made up the lion’s share at $82 million, but the AI and high-performance computing segment delivered $5.7 million – real money, real contracts, real diversification.
More importantly, management laid out a concrete roadmap: roughly 5,000 GPUs today scaling to 11,000 by the end of next year. That’s not a press release dream – that’s purchase orders, delivery schedules, and customer commitments.
“We are raising our price target to $10 from $8 previously. Our revised price target reflects a 5x EV/revenue multiple applied to our revised C2026 revenue estimate of $498.7M.”
H.C. Wainwright analyst team
When an analyst raises their target during a 50% plus drawdown, you pay attention.
Reading the Chart Like a Pro
Step back and look at the daily chart and something jumps out immediately. Hive has been forming what looks suspiciously like a massive cup-with-handle pattern stretching all the way back to the April lows.
The cup bottomed around $1.28, rounded beautifully, and pushed to $5.54 before pulling back. The current decline into the $3 zone is forming the handle – and crucially, price has now settled right on the 200-day moving average like it has multiple times in the past.
In pattern trading, when the handle forms along a major moving average and volume dries up (check), the probability of continuation higher increases dramatically. Measure the depth of that cup – about 77% – and project it from the top of the handle and you land almost exactly at $9.80. Funny how that lines up with the analyst community average target, isn’t it?
The Bigger Picture Nobody Wants to Talk About
I’ve been doing this long enough to remember when Bitcoin mining stocks were pure speculation plays. Today some of these companies are starting to look more like the picks-and-shovels version of the AI boom with crypto characteristics.
Think about it. The same attributes that made these sites perfect for mining – cheap stranded power, existing grid connections, industrial zoning, liquid cooling infrastructure – make them perfect for the exploding demand in AI compute. And unlike building a new hyperscale data center from scratch (18-36 months and billions in capex), these facilities can be converted in months.
- Existing power contracts often grandfathered at rates hyperscalers can only dream about
- Sites already engineered for 100+ MW loads
- Teams that already know how to operate 24/7/365 with five-nines uptime
- Balance sheet optionality with Bitcoin holdings as a natural hedge
That combination is incredibly difficult to replicate quickly. Which explains why we’re seeing Microsoft, Google, and the rest of Big Tech signing massive deals with former miners left and right.
Risks? Of Course There Are Risks
Let’s not sugarcoat this. Bitcoin could absolutely roll over harder. Another 20-30% drop in BTC would test everyone’s conviction. Execution risk on the AI buildout is real – delays happen, customers can be flaky, margins might compress.
And yes, the stock can always go lower in the short term. Emotional selling doesn’t care about fundamentals. But that’s exactly when the best opportunities present themselves.
“With the stock selling off sharply in the recent market pullback, we see an attractive entry point and reiterate our BUY rating. Our Price Target remains $10.”
Rosenblatt Securities
When coverage is getting more bullish while price is making new lows, that divergence has historically been worth paying attention to.
The Bottom Line
Look, nobody knows exactly when Bitcoin stops bleeding. But the mining sector has rarely been this washed out while simultaneously executing on what might be the most important strategic pivot in its history.
Hive Digital specifically is trading at levels that price in almost complete failure of the AI strategy while the company is actually delivering early proof it works. The analyst community sees roughly 185% upside from current levels. The chart is setting up for a potential explosive move if Bitcoin stabilizes.
In my experience, when fear is this thick and the fundamental story is actually improving underneath – not deteriorating – that’s usually when the best investments are made.
The question every investor has to answer now is simple: are you going to let the crowd’s panic become your opportunity, or wait until the recovery is obvious to everyone and pay significantly more?
Sometimes the best trades feel terrible right until they don’t.
Disclosure: The author holds positions in various digital asset mining companies, including HIVE, at the time of writing. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
