IREN bounces back from Bitcoin slump with $9.7B Microsoft AI deal

IREN moved from near collapse to a massive $9.7 billion agreement with Microsoft, according to ￰0￱ company was founded by Daniel Roberts and Will Roberts, two former Macquarie Group bankers who took the firm public in November 2021 during the peak of the pandemic-driven crypto ￰1￱ the Bitcoin market crashed the next year, the company’s shares fell 96%, leaving the brothers with almost nothing as the value of their stock dropped to the ￰2￱ months ago, Daniel and Will changed ￰3￱ stopped depending on Bitcoin mining and redirected the business to meet demand for AI computing and data ￰4￱ decision changed ￰5￱ of IREN, which was originally named Iris Energy, have risen more than 500% this ￰6￱ Bloomberg Billionaires Index now lists Daniel, age 41, and Will, age 35, with a combined net worth of $846 million for the first ￰7￱ signs long-term capacity contract The deal with Microsoft runs for five years and makes the tech giant the largest customer of ￰8￱ agreement gives Microsoft access to 10% of the company’s total computing ￰9￱ means IREN still has most of its platform available to secure more contracts and raise more ￰10￱ company owns data centers in Canada and the United States, and those facilities run on renewable ￰11￱ said about completing the agreement, “It’s been a big weekend and it’s fantastic to knock it ￰12￱ the reality here is, it’s back into the office, we’ve still got a big job to do.” IREN now operates in the same space as other AI computing providers such as CoreWeave, Nebius Group, and ￰13￱ of these companies once focused on Bitcoin mining and later moved to serving the demand for compute power from AI firms including ￰14￱ He, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, said the agreement represents a turning point for the company’s ￰15￱ said the brothers are now viewed more as builders of AI infrastructure than founders of a crypto ￰16￱ Bitcoin mining to AI compute infrastructure For Daniel, moving from Bitcoin to AI was not ￰17￱ explained that both require huge amounts of physical data center space and steady ￰18￱ said the shift followed the same logic that led them to start mining in the first ￰19￱ early investor meetings, Daniel said they talked about films like The Matrix, Ready Player One, and Wreck-It Ralph to describe how more of everyday life is moving into digital ￰20￱ message was that the world would need more compute, and demand would not slow ￰21￱ brothers grew up in Sydney and studied business at the University of Technology Sydney before working at Macquarie ￰22￱ was a vice president in the commodities and markets division, where he helped create the bank’s crypto ￰23￱ became an executive director at Palisade Investment Partners, working with infrastructure ￰24￱ first got into Bitcoin around 2013, and the company website says he “bought high and sold low.” That experience, combined with the brothers’ background in financing and building infrastructure, led them to launch the company in 2018.

“Bitcoin was a great way to monetize the compute and the data center platform,” Daniel said. “We did that for a number of years and like we always said, as soon as higher and better value use cases come along, we swapped it out.” Today, IREN has become part of the expanding AI computing ￰25￱ brothers’ strategy now centers on securing long-term clients and scaling the infrastructure ￰26￱ remains positioned to negotiate additional ￰27￱ now, Microsoft remains the largest buyer. Meanwhile, the company’s operations stay anchored in Canada and the United States, with continued use of renewable energy to power every ￰28￱ reshaped business keeps the structure that began in mining, but now applies it to ￰29￱ and Will share management of IREN and continue reviewing decisions ￰30￱ said, “We challenge each other, we analyze things to the nth degree, and we’re not afraid to say that if we’re wrong, we’re wrong.

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