Shares of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) mining company Iris Energy Limited (NASDAQ:IREN) are trading higher Wednesday following a positive analyst initiation from Bernstein.

What Happened: Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani initiated coverage on Iris Energy with an Outperform rating and set a price target of $26.

The initiation comes after the company provided a business update and announced that its 2024 expansion was fully funded at the beginning of the month. Iris highlighted its cash position of $425.3 million and zero debt and noted that it has an additional cash buffer that can provide flexibility related to procurement items for its 2025 expansion and beyond.

Iris said it's focused on accelerating monetization opportunities for its broader power and land portfolio in the near term.

On Friday, Iris Energy provided a monthly investor update showing that it mined 233 bitcoin in June, up from 230 mined in May. The company said it remains on track for a hashrate of 20 EH/s in the third quarter and 30 EH/s in the fourth quarter. Iris also said its new-generation S21 Pro miners are scheduled to commence shipping from July.

Iren also provided an update on its AI Cloud Services business at the end of last week. Iren said it now has 816 Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) H100 GPUs. The company noted that its 21% revenue jump in June reflects higher utilization of its GPU fleet and onboarding of new customers.

Berstein joins a growing list of analysts that have weighed in on Iren over the last month. JPMorgan maintained an Overweight rating and raised its price target to $11, Cantor Fitzgerald assumed coverage with an Overweight rating and set a price target of $23 and B. Riley Securities maintained a Buy rating and raised its price target to $18.

IREN Price Action: Iris Energy shares were up 1.95% at $13.07 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay.