Bitcoin miner TeraWulf seeks $3 billion in debt to finance new data center capacity

Bitcoin miner TeraWulf is seeking $3 billion in debt financing to expand its data center capacity, in a deal supported by Google, which holds a minority stake in the firm. 

The financing structure will be supported by Google and arranged by Morgan Stanley, TeraWulf CFO Patrick Fleury told Bloomberg on Thursday, and is intended to support further development of the firm's Lake Mariner campus in New York. The terms of the deal are still under negotiation, Bloomberg reported, and could launch as soon as October. 

Google backstopping the deal could lead to a better rating of TeraWulf's debt, and comes amid broader AI-infrastructure financings, such as the $1.5 billion debt offering from rival compute firm CoreWeave in July.

Google secured an 8% stake in the firm following last month's $3.7 billion 10-year deal between TeraWulf and FluidStack, which will lease the AI compute capacity. Four days later, a 160 MW expansion option brought an additional $1.4B backstop, taking Google’s backstop to about $3.2 billion and its pro forma stake to about 14% of TeraWulf. 

That deal could be worth as much as $8.7 billion, should FluidStack exercise two five-year extension options. The announcement of that deal led TeraWulf shares to jump, though the recent news has not had the same effect; WULF shares are down about 1.3% over the past five days, according to Yahoo Finance data. 

Bitcoin miner Cipher signed a similar deal with FluidStack, backed by Google, this week. That deal, worth $3 billion over its initial term and as much as $7 billion following optional extensions, will lead to Google taking a stake of about 5.4% in Cipher. Cipher simultaneously proposed a private offering of $1.1 billion in convertible senior notes maturing in 2031.