IREN Analyst Ratings Diverge as Canaccord Sets Bullish $70 Target

The recent flurry of analyst activity surrounding IREN (NASDAQ: IREN) highlights a growing divide in how Wall Street values the next generation of digital infrastructure. On February 10, 2026, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. reaffirmed its buy rating for the company, maintaining an ambitious price target of $70.00. This bullish stance stands in stark contrast to a downgrade issued just days earlier on February 7 by Wall Street Zen, which moved the stock from a hold rating. This divergence is not merely a difference in price targets but a fundamental disagreement on the execution risk and valuation of IREN’s dual-track strategy: Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing (HPC).

IREN, formerly known as Iris Energy, has been at the forefront of the energy-first mining strategy, securing large-scale power allocations in regions like Texas and British Columbia. The $70.00 price target from Canaccord suggests that institutional analysts are increasingly viewing IREN not as a volatile proxy for Bitcoin, but as a critical infrastructure provider for the AI revolution. By repurposing its data center designs to accommodate liquid-cooled NVIDIA H100 and H200 clusters, IREN is positioning itself to capture the high-margin revenue associated with AI model training and inference. For Canaccord, the value lies in the company's proprietary data center technology and its ability to bring power-dense capacity online faster than traditional hyperscalers.

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The $70.00 price target from Canaccord suggests that institutional analysts are increasingly viewing IREN not as a volatile proxy for Bitcoin, but as a critical infrastructure provider for the AI revolution.

However, the downgrade from Wall Street Zen reflects the skepticism that often follows rapid pivots. The transition from Bitcoin mining—a relatively straightforward operational model—to HPC and AI cloud services is fraught with capital expenditure (CapEx) risks. Building out Tier 3 or Tier 4 data center capabilities requires significantly more investment per megawatt than traditional mining sheds. Investors are also wary of the AI premium being applied to companies that have yet to show sustained, multi-quarter revenue growth from non-mining activities. The downgrade likely signals concerns that the market has already priced in the best-case scenario for IREN’s expansion, or that the dilution required to fund this growth could dampen per-share value.

When compared to peers like TeraWulf or Cipher Mining, IREN has been more aggressive in its branding as a next-generation data center company. This strategy has made it a favorite for growth-oriented funds but a target for value-focused analysts who question the sustainability of current valuations. The broader market trend shows that power is the new gold, and companies with secured grid connections are sitting on valuable assets regardless of what they compute. The critical question for IREN in the coming months will be its ability to convert its pilot programs with AI firms into long-term, high-value contracts.

Looking forward, the market will be hyper-focused on IREN’s upcoming quarterly reports to verify if the operational reality matches the $70.00 aspiration. If the company can demonstrate a meaningful shift in its revenue mix toward HPC while maintaining its low-cost Bitcoin mining operations, the Canaccord target may prove prescient. Conversely, any delays in the Childress site expansion or a cooling of the AI infrastructure trade could vindicate the more cautious stance taken by Wall Street Zen. For now, IREN remains a high-beta play on the convergence of energy, crypto, and artificial intelligence.