HIVE Digital Signs Sovereign AI Deal as Sphere 3D Puts 30 MW Under Contract

The year’s largest Bitcoin options expiry cleared the market on June 26 with BTC near $59,000, down from $65,000 to open the week. $10.6 billion in open interest, roughly 80 percent of it out of the money. That is where spot was. The companies building the compute infrastructure behind it were somewhere else entirely.

HIVE Digital Technologies had a week that belongs in a different story. A $220 million, three-year GPU cloud contract with Bell Canada and Cohere. A 10-year data center colocation letter of intent with a sovereign Swedish tech client. A $100 million exchangeable notes offering to fund the buildout. Three separate catalysts in five trading sessions, against a backdrop of Bitcoin selling off toward multi-month lows.

Sphere 3D signed 30 megawatts of co-mining agreements with Bitdeer across three U.S. sites, its first major post-merger infrastructure move after absorbing Cathedra Bitcoin in June.

The macro backdrop matters here. Bitcoin fell roughly eight percent on the week, pressured by hawkish Federal Reserve positioning, ETF outflows, and negative dealer gamma amplifying every move lower. The $10.6 billion June 26 expiry, the largest of 2026 to date, reset the options wall. Max pain sat near $74,000, more than $15,000 above where the market actually was. That gap tells you how badly the options market misjudged the month.

HIVE Digital Signs $220M Sovereign AI GPU Contract, 10-Year Swedish LOI, and $100M Notes Offering in One Week

HIVE Digital Technologies (TSX: HIVE | Nasdaq: HIVE) is not a Bitcoin miner that added some AI language to its press releases. The evidence from the week of June 22 is harder to dismiss than that.

Through its wholly owned subsidiary BUZZ High Performance Computing, HIVE announced on June 18 that it had closed a three-year GPU cloud contract valued at approximately $220 million with Bell Canada and Cohere, structuring the deal around Bell Canada’s AI Fabric platform, a national sovereign AI infrastructure initiative, with Cohere serving as the AI layer. BUZZ HPC will supply the NVIDIA-powered GPU clusters and AI-native cloud capacity for enterprise and government workloads flowing through that platform. HIVE filed this as a designated news release against its active shelf prospectus, which means it counts as a material disclosure, not a partnership announcement.

On June 25, two more releases landed the same morning. HIVE announced a letter of intent with a sovereign Swedish tech company for an up to 10-year lease of its Boden, Sweden data center, the Big Boden facility the company recently received municipal approval to acquire outright. The LOI, if it converts to a definitive agreement, would seat up to 10,000 GB300 GPUs inside a site HIVE has operated for eight years. The LOI is non-binding and no assurance exists that a definitive agreement will be reached.

The second June 25 release was a $100 million exchangeable notes offering due 2031, structured through HIVE’s Bermuda subsidiary. The notes are tied to capped call transactions to manage dilution. This is how you fund a data center strategy when you’re growing faster than operating cash flow.

The stock responded. HIVE was up 25 percent on June 22 as the market absorbed the Bell Canada / Cohere contract, recovered from a mid-week pullback, and closed the week up again Friday. B. Riley raised its price target to $8 from $5. Cantor Fitzgerald and Rosenblatt also lifted targets and reiterated bullish ratings.

The financials underneath this are real but still rough around the edges. Full fiscal year 2026 revenue came in at $297.8 million, up 158 percent year over year, driven by hashrate growth from 6.5 EH/s to 25.1 EH/s and the early ramp of GPU cloud activity. Q4 revenue hit $71.8 million, more than double the year-ago period. Contracted HPC annual recurring revenue has reached approximately $35 million. The loss side remains heavy. HIVE reported a net loss of $148 million for the year. Cash burn is real and BTC price exposure cuts both ways. Any reader taking a position in HIVE is buying a speculative growth company with real revenue momentum and real execution risk, not a predictable compounder.

Note on the LOI: non-binding LOIs are flagged for a reason. The Swedish colocation LOI is a letter of intent, not a signed lease. Terms include phased GPU deployment and are subject to definitive agreement execution, regulatory approvals, and counterparty performance. Do not read this as a done deal. The sovereign designation refers to the customer type, not a guarantee of contract execution.

Sphere 3D Puts 30 MW Under Contract with Bitdeer Across Tennessee and Kentucky Sites

Sphere 3D (Nasdaq: ANY) completed its combination with Cathedra Bitcoin on June 1, inheriting four data centers in Tennessee and Kentucky and expanding its managed power capacity to 53 MW across five sites. On June 25, it put 30 of those megawatts to work.

Sphere 3D announced on June 25 that it had entered into co-mining agreements with Bitdeer Technologies Group (Nasdaq: BTDR) to host 30 megawatts of capacity across three of its data center sites in Tennessee and Kentucky. Bitdeer will deploy its SEALMINER A2 Pro Air mining hardware and the two companies will split net mining proceeds. Each agreement runs for one year with an automatic one-year renewal unless either party opts out.

The structure makes sense for where Sphere 3D sits right now. The company has power-backed infrastructure, a newly expanded footprint, and is still working out what to do with it. CEO Joel Block said the company is evaluating sites based on power availability, interconnection profile, capital requirements, and counterparty demand before committing to longer-duration infrastructure plays. Co-mining with Bitdeer generates current economics from sites that might otherwise sit idle during that evaluation.

Sphere 3D also has EA Advisors engaged to look at AI and high-performance compute opportunities. That work is ongoing and no announcements have been made on that front.

Investor note: ANY is a micro-cap Nasdaq-listed company. Market cap at time of writing is approximately $30 to $40 million. The stock is thinly traded with high volatility. The Cathedra merger was completed by all-stock issuance, which added shares outstanding. The company holds a small BTC balance and its revenue is tied directly to Bitcoin price and mining difficulty. Going from a post-merger infrastructure platform to a functioning AI/HPC revenue stream involves capital requirements, counterparty procurement, and execution timelines that have not been detailed publicly.

Bitcoin Context: $10.6B Options Expiry, Max Pain at $74K, Spot Below $60K

The June 26 quarterly options expiry at Deribit was the largest of 2026, with $10.6 billion in open interest. Roughly 80 percent of contracts expired out of the money. Max pain was pinned near $74,000, the level at which sellers would have collected maximum premium. Bitcoin spent the week nowhere near it.

BTC opened the week around $65,000, slid through mid-week on ETF outflows and hawkish Fed commentary, and tested below $60,000 by Friday. US-Iran geopolitical tensions added risk-off pressure. The options architecture was in negative dealer gamma territory for most of the week, meaning market makers were forced to sell into declines rather than absorb them, amplifying moves in either direction.

The gap between max pain and actual spot is a useful number. Fifteen thousand dollars of open interest pricing that turned out to be completely wrong is a reminder of how difficult the quarterly expiry is to predict and how much damage sideways-to-down price action does to leveraged long books. Over 151,000 traders were liquidated in a single 24-hour period during the week.

Readers tracking BTC-exposed mining stocks should verify current price before making any decisions. This article was written with spot Bitcoin near $59,000 to $61,000 for the June 26 to 28 period. Bitcoin prices move significantly between publication and reading.

Upcoming Catalysts: HIVE BUZZ HPC Ramp, Sphere 3D AI/HPC Site Assessment, Bitcoin Post-Expiry Positioning

HIVE Digital: BUZZ HPC delivery timelines under the Bell Canada / Cohere contract; progress on the Swedish Big Boden definitive lease agreement; deployment updates on the $100M notes proceeds; fiscal Q1 2027 (quarter ending June 30, 2026) results expected later in summer.

Sphere 3D: Bitdeer SEALMINER deployment confirmation across Tennessee and Kentucky sites; any update from EA Advisors on AI or HPC site evaluation; ongoing monitoring of ANY market cap relative to minimum Nasdaq listing requirements.

Bitcoin macro: post-expiry options reset and whether BTC can reclaim the $62,000 to $65,000 range; Federal Reserve policy trajectory into Q3 2026; spot ETF flow direction as institutional buyers assess entry after the drawdown.

Sources

Editorial Disclosure

This roundup is based entirely on publicly available information including press releases, SEC filings, and company investor relations pages. Securities discussed include HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd. (TSX: HIVE | Nasdaq: HIVE) and Sphere 3D Corp. (Nasdaq: ANY). Bitdeer Technologies Group (Nasdaq: BTDR) is referenced solely as the counterparty in the Sphere 3D co-mining agreement and is not independently covered in this article. aktiego.com has not received any compensation from any company mentioned, their management, investor relations representatives, or any third party. No staff member or principal of aktiego.com holds a position in any security mentioned at the time of publication. HIVE Digital Technologies press release dates confirmed as follows: June 18, 2026 (BUZZ HPC sovereign AI contract with Bell Canada and Cohere), via Newsfile Corp. and hivedigitaltechnologies.com/news; June 22, 2026 (GPU AI research completion, Asuncion, Paraguay), via Newsfile Corp.; June 25, 2026 (LOI for 10-year HPC colocation with sovereign Swedish tech client), via Newsfile Corp.; June 25, 2026 ($100 million exchangeable notes offering due 2031), via Newsfile Corp. All releases were designated news releases filed against HIVE’s amended and restated prospectus supplement dated June 16, 2026. The BUZZ HPC / Bell Canada / Cohere contract is a three-year GPU cloud agreement; it is not an equity investment, government grant, or binding license. The Swedish colocation LOI is non-binding. No definitive agreement has been signed and there is no assurance one will be reached; terms include phased GPU deployment and are subject to definitive agreement execution, regulatory approvals, and counterparty performance. HIVE reported a net loss of approximately $148 million for fiscal year 2026 despite revenue growth of 158 percent year over year; the company continues to burn cash and carries direct Bitcoin price exposure on both its mining operations and balance sheet. The $100 million exchangeable notes offering, announced concurrent with the week’s positive news flow, includes capped call transactions to manage dilution; additional shares may be issued upon exchange of the notes. Sphere 3D Corp. press release date confirmed as June 25, 2026, via Newsfile Corp. and newsfilecorp.com/release/302728. The Cathedra Bitcoin all-stock business combination closed June 1, 2026; Sphere 3D issued common shares to Cathedra shareholders as merger consideration, increasing shares outstanding from the pre-merger level. Sphere 3D is a micro-cap Nasdaq-listed company with a market capitalization of approximately $30 to $40 million at time of writing. The stock completed a 1-for-10 reverse share consolidation effective February 9, 2026. Revenue is directly exposed to Bitcoin price and mining difficulty. The co-mining agreements with Bitdeer are one-year renewable contracts structured to share net mining proceeds; they do not guarantee a fixed revenue amount and proceeds will fluctuate with Bitcoin price and network difficulty. Sphere 3D has engaged EA Advisors to evaluate AI and high-performance compute opportunities at its sites; no definitive agreements or revenue commitments on that front have been announced. Readers researching ANY should review the company’s full SEC filing history given its micro-cap size, post-merger capital structure, and direct Bitcoin exposure. Bitcoin price data referenced in this article reflects the period June 22 to 28, 2026, with spot trading approximately $65,000 at the open of the week and approximately $59,000 to $61,000 into the June 26 options expiry. Bitcoin prices are highly volatile and can move significantly within hours; readers should verify current levels before making any decisions. Options expiry data sourced from Bitfinex Alpha and Deribit public reporting. US-Iran geopolitical tensions are referenced as a macro driver during the week; geopolitical situations can change rapidly and readers should verify current status independently. Digital asset volatility risk: Bitcoin and all related equities are speculative investments and can lose value rapidly and without warning. These are speculative investments carrying significant risk including potential total loss of capital. Coverage on aktiego.com is provided for informational and educational purposes only. aktiego.com is not a registered investment advisor. Nothing in this article constitutes financial, investment, or professional advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own due diligence and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For more information please see our full DISCLAIMER.