Key Takeaways:
- In line with a latest report, Alcoa is in superior talks to promote its Massena East smelter website to NYDIG, with a deal anticipated to shut by mid-2026.
- The 435 MW New York facility already hosts ~54,000 bitcoin miners and NYDIG took a stake in Coinmint there in October 2024.
- NYDIG’s acquisition follows its March 2025 settlement to purchase Crusoe Power’s bitcoin mining enterprise, including over 270 MW of capability.
NYDIG Eyes Full Management of Massena Bitcoin Mining Campus
The deal would switch full possession of the roughly 435 MW hydropower-connected campus alongside the St. Lawrence River to NYDIG, which already holds a strategic stake within the website’s current bitcoin mining operation. Alcoa CEO Invoice Oplinger confirmed in an April 17, 2026, interview that Alcoa is in advanced-stage negotiations, in accordance with a report revealed by Jacob Lorinc of Bloomberg.
Oplinger mentioned the corporate expects the transaction to shut across the center of the yr. The Massena East facility has operated as a bitcoin mining campus since 2018, when Alcoa signed a 10-year lease with Coinmint, which later rebranded its native operations as North Nation Colocation Companies. NYDIG invested in Coinmint in October 2024, giving it the flexibility to deploy its personal mining rigs on the website.
The campus reportedly attracts about 166 MW of its accredited 435 MW capability and homes roughly 54,000 bitcoin mining models throughout six former aluminum smelting strains. A number of third-party purchasers, together with Cleanspark, Gryphon, and Bit Digital, have since exited the positioning.
Alcoa has not disclosed monetary phrases. Throughout its Q1 2026 earnings name on April 16, Oplinger described the possible purchaser as a previous accomplice on the website engaged on an information heart undertaking, in step with Bloomberg’s identification of NYDIG as the client.
The Massena East website attracts energy from the New York Energy Authority by way of the Moses-Saunders hydroelectric dam on the St. Lawrence River. Bitcoin miners and knowledge heart operators have focused former aluminum smelters as a result of the services have been constructed for steady, high-voltage industrial hundreds, forsaking devoted substations and transmission strains that bypass years of latest grid interconnection timelines.
Alcoa initially idled Massena East in 2014, citing excessive power prices and world competitors. The property spans roughly 1,300 acres and contains the complete electrical infrastructure constructed for industrial-scale aluminum manufacturing.
The sale is a part of Alcoa’s plan to divest roughly 10 dormant U.S. smelter websites. Oplinger mentioned the corporate has been providing these properties to knowledge heart builders and crypto miners searching for massive, pre-wired industrial footprints with utility-scale grid entry.
NYDIG has moved steadily to broaden its bodily bitcoin mining capability. In March 2025, the agency reached an settlement to amass Crusoe Power’s bitcoin mining enterprise, which carried greater than 270 MW of working capability. Mixed with different North American mining property acquired in 2024, the Massena East buy would give NYDIG direct possession of a website it has been working at for over a yr.
Alcoa reported sturdy first-quarter 2026 earnings alongside the deal information, posting web earnings of $425 million and adjusted EBITDA of $595 million, pushed by aluminum costs.
The present mining operation at Massena employs about 85 full-time employees throughout Massena and Plattsburgh. Enlargement below NYDIG’s possession is anticipated to develop that workforce, with the City of Massena having already up to date native rules to accommodate cryptocurrency and knowledge mining operations.
The deal follows an identical transfer by Century Aluminum, which bought its Hawesville, Kentucky smelter to Terawulf for roughly $200 million in money and fairness for digital infrastructure use. Repurposing the Massena website for bitcoin mining avoids new energy plant development by routing current hydropower capability, a element that has drawn curiosity from ESG-focused operators trying to run carbon-free digital infrastructure.
