Key Takeaways:
In keeping with a latest report, Alcoa is in superior talks to promote its Massena East smelter web site 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 Vitality’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 web site’s present bitcoin mining operation. Alcoa CEO Invoice Oplinger confirmed in an April 17, 2026, interview that Alcoa is in advanced-stage negotiations, in response to a report printed by Jacob Lorinc of Bloomberg.
Oplinger mentioned the corporate expects the transaction to shut across the center of the 12 months. 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 web site.
The campus reportedly attracts about 166 MW of its accredited 435 MW capability and homes roughly 54,000 bitcoin mining items throughout six former aluminum smelting strains. A number of third-party purchasers, together with Cleanspark, Gryphon, and Bit Digital, have since exited the location.
Alcoa has not disclosed monetary phrases. Throughout its Q1 2026 earnings name on April 16, Oplinger described the potential purchaser as a previous associate on the web site engaged on a knowledge heart mission, per Bloomberg’s identification of NYDIG as the client.
The Massena East web site 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 amenities had been constructed for steady, high-voltage industrial hundreds, abandoning devoted substations and transmission strains that bypass years of recent grid interconnection timelines.
Alcoa initially idled Massena East in 2014, citing excessive power prices and international competitors. The property spans roughly 1,300 acres and contains the total 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 develop its bodily bitcoin mining capability. In March 2025, the agency reached an settlement to amass Crusoe Vitality’s bitcoin mining enterprise, which carried greater than 270 MW of working capability. Mixed with different North American mining belongings acquired in 2024, the Massena East buy would give NYDIG direct possession of a web site it has been working at for over a 12 months.
Alcoa reported robust first-quarter 2026 earnings alongside the deal information, posting web revenue 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 underneath NYDIG’s possession is predicted to develop that workforce, with the City of Massena having already up to date native laws to accommodate cryptocurrency and knowledge mining operations.
The deal follows an analogous 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 web site for bitcoin mining avoids new energy plant development by routing present hydropower capability, a element that has drawn curiosity from ESG-focused operators seeking to run carbon-free digital infrastructure.
