Bitdeer Technologies Group is posting its strongest weekly gain in months — up 25% — yet the bears have barely blinked, leaving the stock in an unusual tug-of-war between a sharp price recovery and one of the most entrenched short positions in the crypto mining space.
The short side of the ledger has not softened despite the rally. Short interest now stands at 31.1% of the free float — up 4.1% on the week and up nearly 24% over the past month — a continuation of the steady rebuild that began in late July. That month-long grind has added roughly four million shares to the short position, and nothing in the recent price action appears to have triggered meaningful covering. Days to cover run at 3.66, and FINRA's most recent official print of 56.8 million shares short, settled through August 14, confirms the pressure was already entrenched before this week's pop. The lending market tells an interesting secondary story: availability has actually loosened sharply, jumping to 202% from around 106% a week ago, meaning the supply of shares to borrow has expanded relative to what's already been lent out. Cost to borrow, while up 41% on the week to 0.68%, remains low in absolute terms — not a signal of a true squeeze developing.
Options positioning has shifted noticeably, though in a more cautious direction than the price move might suggest. The put/call ratio hit 0.59 on Tuesday — more than two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.43 — which is a meaningful defensive lean even as the stock rallied hard. The prior note from August 19 flagged an even more extreme PCR reading of 0.63 in the days immediately following the August 10 earnings collapse. Today's reading has not returned to that defensive peak, but it hasn't normalised either, sitting well above the sub-0.31 levels that characterised the more constructive July period. The ORTEX short score has eased slightly to 67.1 from a recent high near 71.7 — still elevated, but a modest improvement from the week's earlier readings.
The Street is divided but leaning constructive, with the consensus anchored at Buy. Barclays initiated coverage on August 20 with an Overweight rating and a $15 target — meaningful as a fresh institutional endorsement, though the $15 target sits below the current price of $11.29 only at a modest premium. The broader analyst cluster reflects post-earnings target cuts: KBW lowered its target to $10 (from $14) while holding Market Perform, and B. Riley and Needham both trimmed their Buy targets to $21 and $20 respectively after the August 10 print. The mean consensus target across the group runs at approximately $21.77, implying roughly 93% upside from current levels — though that average is pulled higher by outlier targets including Citizens' $35 initiation from June. The factor score picture underscores the tension: analyst recommendation divergence ranks in the 98th percentile, a reflection of how wide the bull-bear gap has grown, while EPS momentum over both 30-day and 90-day windows sits near the bottom of the universe at the 7th and 10th percentile respectively.
The bull case rests on BTDR's AI data centre buildout — the Tydal facility — alongside gross margin recovery and a growing cloud hash rate business. Bears are focused on Bitcoin price volatility, the risk of further share dilution, and the company's narrow lane in colocation. The August 10 earnings day produced a 20% single-session drop; the five-day move that followed was -13.7%, confirming the print was a genuine reset for market expectations. That history matters for sizing how much of the current bounce is fundamental re-rating versus short-term relief.
Two insider purchases filed around the time of that earnings drop — the CFO bought 25,000 shares at $9.04 on August 12, and the Chief Strategy Officer added another 25,000 at $8.84 on August 14 — are a small but notable data point. Combined they represent roughly $447,000 of net buying at prices well below where the stock trades today. Peer performance adds further context: RIOT gained 12.6% on the week and KEEL rose 11.1%, both outperforming BTDR's 25% surge only in the sense that the sector generally participated — BTDR's move was larger, not smaller, than the peer group, which is a reversal of recent underperformance patterns flagged in earlier notes.
With the next earnings event not due until November 10, the question to watch is whether the current rally draws short covering — which would require availability to tighten meaningfully — or whether bears treat the price strength as an opportunity to rebuild at higher levels, keeping the short position near its one-month highs.
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