Bitcoin: Riot Platforms Pays Off $200 Million Loan and Aims for Over $9 Billion with Anthropic

Loan settled ahead of schedule. Riot Platforms has repaid a $200 million loan secured by its bitcoins ahead of time. The Texas miner thus recovers its collateral. Moreover, the operation comes a month after a $9.1 billion lease signed with Anthropic, OpenAI's rival.

Key Points

• Riot paid off the $200 million loan on September 21, seven months before the due date.
• The 5,821 BTC pledged with Coinbase regain their freedom.
• According to Bloomberg, Anthropic is leasing 191 MW in Rockdale for $9.1 billion over 20 years.
• In Corsicana, a gigawatt has already been authorized and is subject to a letter of intent.

Riot Platforms Settles Its Bitcoin-Backed Loan Before Maturity

Riot had opened this line of credit with Coinbase Credit in April 2025, for $100 million. The following month, the group doubled it. Its uniqueness lay in the collateral: bitcoins from its treasury, supplemented by USDC and cash, held with Coinbase Custody. This type of loan allows raising liquidity without selling a single satoshi. However, it exposes the borrower to a margin call as soon as the price drops. This has become a reflex among American miners.

The collateral was thus released seven months before the April 2027 deadline, without penalty. Riot also eliminates an interest charge of about $12 million per year, at a fixed rate of 6.15%. As of June 30, the lender held 5,821 BTC as collateral. This represents more than half of a reserve of 11,380 BTC, which has already been reduced. The group has indeed sold 27% of its bitcoin treasury to finance its pivot towards AI.

This hygiene matters, as Riot needs to finance data centers of several hundred megawatts. A balance sheet without encumbrance on its main asset opens the door to infrastructure funds. Their tickets are counted in billions, not hundreds of millions. Banks first look at what the borrower has already promised to someone else.

Riot Leases Rockdale to Anthropic and Keeps Corsicana in Reserve

This cleanup follows a much heavier project. In mid-August, Riot signed a 20-year lease for 191 MW of IT capacity on its Rockdale campus. The contract brings in $9.1 billion over the initial term, and up to $16.1 billion with extensions. Riot does not name its tenant. However, it is Anthropic according to Bloomberg, which relies on sources close to the matter. Riot plans to deliver 96 MW in December 2027, then the total in June 2028. By the end of 2025, Anthropic also announced $50 billion in American data centers, with Fluidstack. The first projects target Texas and New York State.

Riot also keeps a second card up its sleeve. In Corsicana, south of Dallas, the group has one gigawatt of authorized power. In August, it signed a non-binding letter of intent for 756 MW of IT capacity. The sole tenant remains anonymous. No AI lab can produce such power in eighteen months. Indeed, AI data centers are energy deficient. In Texas, the connection queue now counts in years.

IREN, Cipher, TeraWulf: Bitcoin Miners Become AI Landlords

Riot is not the first. IREN signed $9.7 billion with Microsoft. Cipher Mining secured $5.5 billion with Amazon. As for TeraWulf, it concluded nearly $9.5 billion with Fluidstack, backed by Google. Each time, the operator trades a revenue indexed to the hash price for a lease of five to twenty-five years. However, equity markets reward this visibility much more than a mined block.

These megawatts, the mining industry has paid for them alone. Riot first connected Corsicana and Rockdale to produce SHA-256 hashing. At that time, no one was competing for a dusty plot in Navarro County. Today, AI labs are thus renting an electrical infrastructure that Bitcoin has financed.

Riot thus emerges from the operation with a bitcoin treasure free of any encumbrance. It also holds a first AI lease in Rockdale and an authorized gigawatt in Corsicana. The treasure can be purchased on the market in a few clicks. The gigawatt, however, is negotiated with the Texas grid manager, after several years of waiting.

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