avday 
IREN shares closed at $26.99 on Nasdaq on 16 October, down 34.6% from $41.28 on 6 October. Based on the 404.6 million ordinary shares IREN reported in its annual meeting notice, that is roughly $5.8bn of market value gone in eight trading sessions.
What makes the slide unusual is that IREN itself said almost nothing. It has filed no press release or results update since early September. Every catalyst came from someone else: a research firm’s posts on X, a report about an unconfirmed customer, a gloomy industry forecast, and a debt scare at its larger rival CoreWeave. The business IREN described in its last results (fast-growing AI cloud contracts, financed by heavy borrowing) is unchanged on paper. What changed is how much investors were willing to pay for that kind of business.
The slide, day by day
All prices are Nasdaq closing prices.
| Date | Close | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Oct | $41.28 | Starting point |
| 7 Oct | $38.69 | SemiAnalysis criticises IREN’s Canadian data centres on X (reported by Investing.com) |
| 8 Oct | $35.71 | Selling continues |
| 12 Oct | $34.80 | The Information reports an unconfirmed Anthropic deal; early gains fade |
| 14 Oct | $30.56 | Down 12.2%: Gartner’s neocloud forecast and the CoreWeave bond sell-off |
| 15 Oct | $30.39 | |
| 16 Oct | $26.99 | Down 11.2%: Morningstar cuts its fair value estimate, according to The Crypto Basic |
SemiAnalysis and the Canadian sites (7 October)
On 7 October, SemiAnalysis, a research firm that rates GPU cloud providers, posted on X that customers had called IREN’s older British Columbia sites at Prince George and Mackenzie among the “worst in the industry”, citing power outages, storage failures and air-quality problems, according to Investing.com. It said IREN’s newer Texas builds “look much better”. These are customer accounts, not audited uptime figures, and IREN had not responded publicly by the following day.
The Anthropic report (12 October)
On 12 October, The Information reported that “people familiar with the relationship” said Anthropic has an unannounced multiyear cloud deal with IREN. It gave no value, capacity or timing. Neither company has confirmed it, and IREN did not respond to Reuters, FinanceFeeds reported. Early gains that morning disappeared by the close. IREN disclosed a contract with an unnamed “leading frontier AI lab” in August, but nothing public links that contract to Anthropic.
Gartner and CoreWeave (14 October)
The sharpest one-day fall came on 14 October, when two things hit the whole “neocloud” group, the companies that rent out GPU capacity:
- Gartner forecast that more than 80% of neocloud providers will stop operating independently by 2030, and that more than $3.5tn of AI infrastructure spending could face impairment. It named no companies.
- CoreWeave, the largest neocloud, fell more than 15% as its bonds sold off. Reuters reported on 15 October that the yield on CoreWeave’s bonds due 2031 had passed 16%, and that the cost of insuring its debt implied “a nearly 63 per cent chance” of default within five years, up from about 30% a year earlier. In an internal memo seen by Reuters, chief executive Mike Intrator told staff the company’s backlog more than covers its debt obligations, and that markets can sometimes “misunderstand and act irrationally.”
Reuters reported that IREN, Nebius and Applied Digital fell between 3.2% and 5% in early trading on 15 October as the sell-off spread. The same rout hit chipmakers, even TSMC on the day it reported record results, and space stocks such as Rocket Lab. IREN recovered most of that to close 0.6% lower that day.
Morningstar (16 October)
The Crypto Basic reported that Morningstar cut its fair value estimate for IREN from $43 to $37, citing rising borrowing costs and competition for capital. We couldn’t confirm the change on Morningstar’s own site.
What IREN has said
In the ten days of the slide, IREN made two public statements, and neither was about the share price.
- Annual meeting notice (13 October). IREN’s virtual AGM is on 24 November 2026. Shareholders will vote on, among other things, approving share repurchases linked to its convertible-note hedges, and re-electing director Christopher Guzowski.
- Redbank (13 October). IREN posted on X about early plans for a data-centre campus near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales: “Redbank is in the early assessment phase. IREN is working toward a grid connection, and the project is not included in our announced 5GW secured-power portfolio.”
What the filings show
IREN’s most recent numbers are from its results for the year to 30 June 2026, published on 27 August.
| Year to 30 June | FY26 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|
| AI cloud revenue | $128.8m | $16.4m |
| Bitcoin mining revenue | $578.2m | $484.6m |
| Total revenue | $707.0m | $501.0m |
| Net income (loss) | $(702.6)m | $86.9m |
Three things in those filings explain both the excitement and the nerves:
- Fast contract growth. IREN reported “$4bn contracted ARR for 2026 capacity” and $1bn of annualised revenue already operating. Its anchor customers are Microsoft, with a $9.7bn, five-year cloud contract announced in November 2025, and NVIDIA, with a $3.4bn contract.
- A large loss, mostly from write-downs. The FY26 loss includes $638.8m of impairments, mainly from retiring bitcoin-mining machines as sites are converted to AI cloud.
- Very large commitments. At 30 June, IREN had commitments of $13,810.0m, up from $368.8m a year earlier, mostly for AI hardware and infrastructure. Its 10-K warns that the Microsoft and NVIDIA contracts “represent a substantial majority of our contracted revenue”.
IREN’s own video of the first Microsoft delivery at Childress, Texas:
That combination of growth funded by borrowing, concentrated customers and capital costs that rise with interest rates is exactly what the CoreWeave sell-off made investors nervous about.
What to watch
- First-quarter results for the three months to 30 September. IREN hasn’t announced a date.
- Microsoft deliveries. The first of four Microsoft deployments at Childress, Texas was accepted in August, and IREN’s 10-K says the remaining three are targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.
- The AGM on 24 November.
- Any response from IREN to the SemiAnalysis claims, or confirmation either way on Anthropic.
Our take
IREN FAQ
Why did IREN stock fall in October 2026? Between 6 and 16 October, IREN fell 34.6% on Nasdaq on a mix of outside pressures: SemiAnalysis criticism of its Canadian sites, an unconfirmed report about Anthropic, Gartner’s forecast for neoclouds, a debt scare at CoreWeave, and a reported Morningstar fair value cut. IREN made no announcement explaining the move.
Has IREN confirmed a deal with Anthropic? No. The Information reported it on 12 October, citing unnamed people. Neither IREN nor Anthropic has confirmed it.
When does IREN report its next results? IREN hasn’t announced the date of its first-quarter results yet.
Who are IREN’s biggest customers? Its filings name Microsoft ($9.7bn, five years) and NVIDIA ($3.4bn) as its largest contracts, together a substantial majority of contracted revenue.
