Bitdeer Technologies Group has given back most of the gains that briefly rattled the bears last week, dropping 8.3% over the past five days to $10.35 — and the short position that shrugged off that rally has barely budged, leaving the stock caught between an entrenched bear thesis and a Street that still sees significant upside.
Short sellers have not blinked. Short interest remains pinned at 31.2% of the free float — essentially flat with the 31.1% recorded when the stock was rallying 25% a week ago, and up 6.3% on the month as the slow-motion rebuild from late July continues. That persistence through a major price swing is the defining feature of the current setup: covering has been minimal in either direction, suggesting the bears are playing a longer-duration trade rather than reacting to price action. The lending market, however, has not tightened to match. Availability now runs at 194%, meaning nearly two shares remain available to borrow for every one already lent out — loose enough that new short positions can be established without friction. Cost to borrow, while up 40% over the past month, is still only 0.69%, a level that imposes no real carry burden on existing short books. The short score has eased from a peak of 72.4 on August 27 to 64.6 today — notable, but still elevated.
The wider sector is also under pressure, which complicates any clean read on BTDR specifically. fell 13.5% on the week, dropped 16.5%, and lost 13.3%. 's 8.3% decline is actually a relative outperformance within this group, though that is a modest comfort given the sector's direction. and held up slightly better, each down around 10%, but the broad picture is a coordinated pullback across listed Bitcoin mining equities.
The Street is split in a way that reflects the stock's unusual risk profile. Barclays initiated coverage on August 20 with an Overweight and a $15 target — close to where the stock traded at initiation but now representing meaningful upside from the current $10.35. The bulls, anchored by Needham and B. Riley, maintain Buy ratings with targets of $20-21, citing BTDR's 3.0 GW electrical capacity pipeline and its pivot into AI cloud services as differentiated growth levers. The bears — or at least the cautious — are represented by KBW, which cut its target from $14 to $10 after the August earnings print and is effectively calling the stock fairly valued right here. The August 10 earnings event was the wound that keeps bleeding: the stock fell 20% on the day and lost a further 13.7% over the five sessions that followed, prompting a wave of target cuts from firms that had been more constructive. With the next print not due until November 10, the Street has a long wait to reassess. The consensus buy rating and $21.77 mean target imply roughly 110% upside from current levels — a number that says less about conviction and more about how far the stock has fallen relative to where analysts wrote their models.
Two activist holders sit on the 13D register — Tether Global Investments Fund with 19.7% of the class and Shinning Stone with just under 5% — a concentration of strategic ownership that limits free float and adds an idiosyncratic layer to the short thesis. As is standard with 13D/G disclosures, stakes are as last disclosed around the 5% threshold, and either holder could reduce exposure without a further filing if they drop below that level. BlackRock added 2.1 million shares as of July 31, and Citadel filed a new 13G in late July disclosing 4.8% — a notable arrival from one of the larger quant and multi-strat shops. Insider buying, however, has been absent: net SEC Form 4 activity over the past 90 days reads zero, with no open-market purchases filed.
The November 10 earnings date is now the primary event on the calendar, and with the stock still nursing the scar tissue from the August print, the question heading into that release is whether the AI cloud and colocation pivot is generating the revenue that targets assume — or whether the business remains as Bitcoin-dependent as the bears contend.
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