Empery Digital, a firm with roots in the cryptocurrency space, is making a $65 million bet on artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company announced it will acquire a 25% stake in a private entity that is converting a former industrial site in the Midwest into an AI data center. The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, marks a notable pivot for a firm that has long framed its business around Bitcoin.
What the Investment Covers
The site comes with a key asset for any data center: an owned electrical substation and existing infrastructure that supports roughly 150 megawatts of power capacity under a current agreement. Power availability and cost have become critical factors in the race to build AI computing capacity, as training and running large language models requires enormous amounts of electricity. The Midwest has emerged as a popular region for such projects due to relatively low power costs and available land.
Empery Digital also announced a partnership with Hunt Properties, a real estate firm, to identify and acquire additional powered land for future data center development. This suggests the company sees the current investment as a first step rather than a one-off deal.
A Shift Away from Bitcoin Framing
Perhaps as significant as the investment itself is what Empery Digital is leaving behind. The company said it plans to retire its Bitcoin-based net asset value (NAV) dashboard. For everyday investors, NAV is a measure of a company's total assets minus liabilities, often used to gauge the value of investment funds. Empery Digital had previously used a dashboard that tied its NAV to Bitcoin's price, a common approach among crypto-focused firms that want to highlight their exposure to digital assets.
By retiring that dashboard, Empery Digital is signaling a strategic shift away from being seen purely as a crypto play and toward a broader technology infrastructure focus. This move aligns with a wider trend: many crypto-native firms are diversifying into AI and data center businesses, as the two sectors share a need for high-performance computing and energy resources.
What It Means for Investors
For everyday investors, this deal highlights the growing convergence between cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. Data centers are the physical backbone of both industries, and companies that can secure power and land are increasingly valuable. The broader data center boom has been a major theme in markets, with firms like Digital Realty boosting its Northern Virginia stakes in a $3.5 billion deal with Blackstone, and Infineon getting a revenue boost forecast as AI data centers drive power chip demand.
Empery Digital's move also reflects the intense demand for powered sites. A 150-megawatt facility is substantial—enough to power roughly 30,000 homes—but still modest compared to the gigawatt-scale campuses being planned by hyperscalers like Amazon and Microsoft. The partnership with Hunt Properties suggests Empery Digital is looking to scale up.
Investors should note that this is a private investment, not a publicly traded stock. Empery Digital itself is not a listed company, so retail investors cannot directly buy into this deal. However, the trend it represents—crypto firms moving into AI infrastructure—could have ripple effects for publicly traded data center REITs, power utilities, and chipmakers that supply the sector.
The retirement of the Bitcoin NAV dashboard is also worth watching. It may indicate that Empery Digital wants to be valued on its own operational merits rather than on the volatile price of Bitcoin. That could appeal to a broader set of investors if the company eventually seeks a public listing, similar to Ionic Digital's recent filing for a Nasdaq direct listing.
Broader Context
The data center buildout is one of the most capital-intensive trends in markets today. Companies are spending billions to secure power, land, and equipment. The UK is also easing rules for stablecoin issuers, as seen in the first crypto framework from UK regulators, which could encourage more crypto firms to invest in physical infrastructure.
For now, Empery Digital's $65 million stake is a relatively small piece of a much larger puzzle. But it shows that even crypto-focused firms see the AI data center boom as a more stable opportunity than pure digital asset speculation.
