Riot Platforms Gains as Morgan Stanley Starts Coverage at Overweight

Riot Platforms shares advanced after Morgan Stanley initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and a $36 price target, citing the bitcoin miner's large power footprint and its potential to monetize capacity through both mining and AI data-center leasing.

The initiation lands as Riot repositions itself as a revenue-generating data center operator. The company reported 42.5 EH/s of deployed hash rate and 1,473 bitcoin produced in its most recent quarterly update, and it has continued selling bitcoin — including another 500 BTC transferred to NYDIG — to fund the buildout.

The pivot is not without skeptics. Mining peers IREN and MARA have slid alongside Riot at times as investors weigh rising competition for AI infrastructure deals against the sector's crypto-price sensitivity.