The analyst framed some bitcoin mining sites as infrastructure assets, lifting CIFR and WULF shares while MARA lags.
Updated Feb 9, 2026, 5: 45 p.m. Published Feb 9, 2026, 4: 55 p.m.
Morgan Stanley initiated coverage of three publicly traded bitcoin BTC$70,698.12 mining companies on Monday, backing two names tied to data center leasing while taking a more cautious stance on a miner focused on bitcoin exposure.
Analyst Stephen Byrd and his team started coverage of Cipher Mining (CIFR) and TeraWulf (WULF) with Overweight ratings and set price targets of $38 and $37, respectively. Shares of CIFR are higher by 12.4% Monday to $16.51, while WULF is ahead 12.8% to $16.12.
He also initiated coverage of Marathon Digital (MARA) with an Underweight rating and an $8 target. Shares of MARA are marginally higher on Monday at $8.28.
Byrd’s core argument rests on viewing certain bitcoin mining sites less as crypto bets and more as infrastructure assets. Once a mining company has built a data center and signed a long-term lease with a strong counterparty, he wrote, the asset is better suited to investors who value steady cash flow than to traders focused on bitcoin price swings.
“At a macro level, once a bitcoin company has a built-in data center and entered into a long-term lease with a creditworthy counterparty, that DC’s natural investor habitat is not among bitcoin investors but among infrastructure investors,” Byrd wrote, adding that such assets should be valued for “long-term, stable cash flow.”
To make the point concrete, Byrd compared these facilities to data center real estate investment trusts such as Equinix (EQIX) and Digital Realty (DLR), which he described as “the closest comparable companies to consider when valuing DC assets developed by bitcoin companies.” Their shares trade at more than 20 times forward EBITDA, meaning investors are willing to pay over $20 for every $1 of expected annual operating cash flow because those firms offer scale, diversification and steady growth.
Byrd does not expect data centers developed by bitcoin companies to trade at similar levels, “primarily because these data center REITs have growth potential that a single DC asset does not provide.” Still, he sees room for higher valuations than the market currently assigns.
Cipher sits at the center of that view. Byrd described the company’s data centers as suitable for what he called a “REIT endgame.” “We use the phrase ‘REIT endgame’ to descr