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Bitcoin mining giant CleanSpark CLSK is betting big on the next crypto bull run, as CEO Zach Bradford told Bernstein analysts that the company plans to aggressively expand mining capacity ahead of and expected Bitcoin BTC/USD price surge.

What Happened: "I believe we could see Bitcoin peak just under $200,000, sometime in the next 18 months,” Bradford told Bernstein analysts in an interview. He expects the upward move to begin after the U.S. presidential election.

To capitalize on this potential rally, CleanSpark is rapidly acquiring and developing mining sites. Bradford noted, “We started the year just under 10EH/s, we crossed 26EH/s this month. With those acquisitions we should be 30EH/s, just right around the corner.”

The company is focusing on smaller, distributed mining operations rather than massive single-site facilities. Bradford explained, “It is much more valuable to the grid when you are located in small pockets around substations, so a distributed network offer ability to manage their own loads, making us more friendly to the grid, thus seeing much better prices.”

With site acquisitions, CleanSpark has scaled up to 1 gigawatt power contracts across 5 states in the U.S. The acquisitions are smaller size of 25-75 megawatt (MW) sites at less than $0.5 million/MW, much cheaper than its peers’ acquiring sites.

Why It Matters: While some miners are pivoting towards AI and high-performance computing, CleanSpark remains committed to Bitcoin. Bradford argued, “I don’t want to compete directly against hyper scalers if it means being the 18th best at what we do; I aim to be the best at what we do, and the market is rewarding us for that.”

He added that AI data centers are much longer gestation as most AI data centre revenues are expected to start in 2026/2027. On the other hand, Bitcoin opportunity is today with time to energization and cashflows' in weeks and not years.

Analyst Rating: Bernstein maintains an Outperform rating on CleanSpark with a $30 price target, representing a 219% upside from current levels. The firm sees CleanSpark as well-positioned to benefit from the next Bitcoin bull market.

What’s Next: The influence of Bitcoin as an institutional asset class is expected to be thoroughly explored at Benzinga’s upcoming Future of Digital Assets event on Nov. 19.

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