Riot Signs $28 Billion Corsicana AI Lease, Sells $1.5 Billion of BTC

Riot Platforms sold 20,264 bitcoin in the first nine months of 2026 for about $1.5 billion, primarily to fund data center construction, and ended September holding 2,418 bitcoin worth about $202 million, its quarterly 8-K exhibit shows.

The sales sit against a new 15-year lease covering the full 910 megawatts of critical IT capacity at Riot's Corsicana, Texas campus. Riot calls the counterparty a leading Frontier AI Lab and values the initial term at about $28 billion in contracted revenue.

That pairing explains the shrinking reserve. Bitcoin is the funding source for the buildings Riot leases to AI tenants, and the lease is the reason to sell. The same turn is visible across the sector, with miners repurposing power and land for compute.

Key Facts

• Riot held 2,418 bitcoin at 30 September 2026, about $202 million at a bitcoin price of $83,554, alongside $748.2 million of cash.
• It sold 20,264 bitcoin year-to-date for about $1.5 billion, and repaid its $200 million Coinbase credit facility in full, releasing all pledged bitcoin.
• The Corsicana lease runs 15 years for 910 MW: about $28 billion over the initial term, or $54 billion if both five-year extension options are exercised.
• Deliveries are set for 400 MW in September 2027, 200 MW in January 2028 and 310 MW in July 2028.

The Bitcoin Sale, in Riot's Own Numbers

The year-to-date total of 20,264 bitcoin and roughly $1.5 billion in proceeds is the figure Riot repeats in its 8-K exhibit and its results presentation (exhibit 99.2). The company says those sales, together with its Rockdale lease with the same AI lab and an AMD contract, have contracted 1,151 megawatts and about $38 billion of data center revenue, which it expects to generate more than $2 billion of average annual net operating income at full deployment.

Mining economics improved even as the reserve fell. Riot's average cost to mine a bitcoin was $39,265 in the quarter, down from $46,324 a year earlier, per the same exhibit.

Two details are not in the primary record. A quarter-only sale of 10,599 BTC has been reported, with Riot's bitcoin count said to fall 79% from June, but Riot's release and both 8-K exhibits give the year-to-date total rather than the quarter's. The tenant has been reported as Anthropic, but Riot's documents name it only as a leading Frontier AI Lab. Reported figures for the quarter's revenue and net income are likewise single-source and absent from the exhibit reviewed here.

Corsicana: Rent on 910 MW, Utilized or Not

The Corsicana deal is a triple-net powered land lease. Riot supplies the land, the power infrastructure and the powered pads; the tenant buys and runs the compute and carries substantially all operating costs. Rent is payable on the full 910 MW irrespective of utilization, which puts the risk of underused capacity on the tenant, not on Riot.

Capital cost is the pitch. Riot says the development runs at about $6 million per IT megawatt, about half the cost of a Tier 3 build, and that it does not currently anticipate issuing equity to fund its announced projects. Rent on each phase starts no later than 60 days after delivery of that phase's powered pads.

Chief executive Jason Les called it "the largest lease in Riot's history," a 15-year lease for "910 megawatts of critical IT capacity and approximately $28 billion of contracted revenue over the initial term."

What Lands First, and What Could Slip

The nearer milestone is compute, not bitcoin. AMD's 25 megawatt expansion is on time and on budget, with full delivery scheduled for May 2027, Riot says.

The first Corsicana power, 400 MW, is targeted for September 2027, with 200 MW in January 2028 and the final 310 MW in July 2028. The $28 billion is contracted revenue expected over the lease term, not money received, and rent on each phase begins only once its powered pads are delivered. That makes the schedule the variable to watch. A slip in the 2027 dates pushes both first rent and the $38 billion total further out; on-time delivery is what converts the lease from a backlog figure into cash.