Citi’s Galaxy Digital Buy Is a Helios Landlord Call

Citi upgraded Galaxy Digital to Buy on October 13 and lifted its target to $28, a 40.9% implied gain from the $19.87 close. The note from analyst Peter Christiansen hangs on Helios, the West Texas campus now collecting rent from CoreWeave, not on trading desks. Shares still slipped more than 2% in Tuesday morning trade and finished at $19.71.

The $28 figure is a landlord number. It prices live Phase I rent and a possible Helios II tenant within six months, while most published targets still sit near $39.

Citi’s $28 Target Still Trails the Street

Christiansen moved Galaxy Digital, ticker GLXY on Nasdaq, from Neutral to Buy and raised the target from $26, a 7.69% lift on the old mark. He said Helios I economics had come in better than his model and that the AI buildout now looked more certain. “Now, we think the risk/reward is attractive,” he wrote.

THE NOTE IN FOUR FIGURES

• The rating: Neutral to Buy on October 13.
• The target: $26 to $28, about 40.9% above Monday’s $19.87 close.
• The tenant: a Helios II name possible inside six months.
• The Street: the average published target still sits near $39.

That gap is the tell. Citi is not stretching for a data-center multiple. It is marking a crypto-and-power hybrid that already has one paying tenant and one large block of approved watts with no name on the door. The same desk told clients crypto stocks were walking into earnings with a “considerably stronger backdrop” than a few months earlier, after market cap rose from about $2.1 trillion to nearly $3 trillion in the third quarter and ETF flows turned positive.

Galaxy is still a digital-asset firm. It trades, advises, stakes, and tokenizes. The Buy, though, is a vote on Dickens County steel and ERCOT paper.

Helios Phase I Is Already Collecting Rent

Galaxy said on July 6 that it had finished the first phase of power at Helios and handed CoreWeave 133 MW of critical IT load under a 15-year lease. That delivery was about 200 MW of gross power, on schedule, with rent starting in the second quarter of 2026.

Phase II is a greenfield add of 260 MW of critical IT. Civil and structural work is under way, and Galaxy expects data-hall deliveries to start in the first half of 2027. Across Phases I through III, CoreWeave has taken 526 MW of critical IT, the full 800 MW of gross power now approved and contracted at the campus, on 15-year leases with two five-year extension options. Galaxy said those leases should produce more than $1 billion in average annual revenue.

Completing Phase I on budget and on schedule affirms Galaxy’s position as an operator capable of executing hyperscale AI data center development. Helios is now generating revenue across its entire 133 MW of IT load, and greenfield work on Phase II is already underway. The demand for high-density, AI-ready power is not a cycle; it is a structural shift, and Galaxy is built to meet it.

Mike Novogratz, founder and chief executive, Galaxy newsroom, July 6, 2026

The campus covers more than 2,200 acres. Approved power is 1.63 GW, with room in Galaxy’s plans to scale toward 3.6 GW. The site began as an Argo Blockchain bitcoin mine. Galaxy bought it in late 2022 for about $65 million and stripped the ASIC halls for GPU-density power and cooling. An independent directory lists the CoreWeave Helios campus in Afton, Texas, as an operating AI site on that converted load.

Second-quarter results showed the ramp, not the run rate. Galaxy posted an $85 million net loss, or $(0.09) a share, and firmwide adjusted EBITDA of $(77) million, mostly from marks on digital assets. Data Centers booked $20 million of adjusted gross profit and $11 million of adjusted EBITDA as halls came online. With all 133 MW in service, Galaxy said Phase I should produce about $80 million of leasing revenue in the third quarter at a project-level adjusted EBITDA margin over 90%.

HELIOS FROM MINE TO CAMPUS

1. Late 2022: Galaxy buys the Dickens County site from Argo Blockchain for about $65 million.
2. July 6, 2026: Phase I power reaches CoreWeave, 133 MW of critical IT, rent already running from the second quarter.
3. July 2026: Galaxy Helios Data Centers II prices $3.507 billion of 9.875% senior secured notes due August 1, 2031, to fund Phase II.
4. August 5, 2026: Q2 print shows Data Centers’ first revenue quarter and an $80 million Q3 leasing guide for Phase I.
5. September 8, 2026: ERCOT’s Batch Zero file lists Helios I at 800 MW and Helios II at 830 MW as Base Load.
6. October 13, 2026: Citi moves GLXY to Buy at $28 and flags a Helios II tenant in six months.

Phase II is already financed at a hard coupon. The notes pay cash interest twice a year starting February 1, 2027. That is the cost of turning approved watts into halls CoreWeave has already agreed to take.

The 830 MW Block Still Needs a Tenant

Citi’s six-month catalyst is not CoreWeave Phase II. That 260 MW is already leased. The open block is Helios II, 830 MW of ERCOT-approved gross power that still has no tenant. Galaxy got that extra 830 MW through a Large Load Interconnection Study in January 2026, doubling Helios to more than 1.6 GW. On September 8 it said Helios I (800 MW) and Helios II (830 MW) both sit in Batch Zero Base Load, so they are modeled in the Texas large-load interconnection process without a further capacity raffle. Energization for Helios II remains 2028. Galaxy said leasing was not hit by the review.

THE HELIOS POWER STACK

• Phase I, live: 133 MW of critical IT (about 200 MW gross) paying CoreWeave rent since the second quarter of 2026.
• Phase II, building: 260 MW of critical IT, halls due from the first half of 2027, funded by the $3.507 billion notes.
• Phases I to III, contracted: 526 MW of critical IT, 800 MW gross, 15-year CoreWeave leases, more than $1 billion of average annual revenue.
• Helios II, approved: 830 MW gross, Base Load, 2028 power, no tenant named, more than $180 million of long-lead gear already ordered.

Austin Storms, Galaxy’s co-head of data centers, has said the firm wants to own the buildings and the mechanical and electrical kit and lease them as landlord. Galaxy has been talking to prospective tenants on the extra 830 MW. Storms prefers a single tenant per campus inside a multi-campus book, because shared upstream power gets messy. That is the Helios II product Citi is waving at: a second name, not a thicker CoreWeave file.

The rest of the map is still paper. Galaxy’s Texas pipeline is more than 5.7 GW of potential capacity across Helios and newer sites, including Merlin’s first 74 MW on a 500-acre McGregor tract, Caspian at 700 MW, Selene at 900 MW, and a 1,000 MW Helios III request. Five Texas projects totaling about 4.2 GW got conditional Batch Zero labels in September, but only the 1.63 GW Helios pair is Base Load. Caspian, Selene, and Helios III are Studied Load, still in line for allocation.

Why the Upgrade Did Not Lift the Stock

A Buy sticker at $28 should have been easy money against $19.87. It was not. The morning tape gave back more than 2%, and the session closed at $19.71. Premarket chatter about a bounce did not survive the open. The market already had Helios I in the price. What it does not have is a second credit on the 830 MW.

CoreWeave is the whole contracted stack. That concentration is the discount. If the tenant’s funding or build schedule slips, Galaxy’s first cash engine slips with it. Helios II is supposed to break that single-name risk, yet it does not energize until 2028, and management has already spent a summer talking about lease talks that did not land. Citi’s six-month window is a new date on an old hope.

The $28 target also sits well under the pack near $39. Christiansen is not arguing that Helios II is in the bag. He is arguing that risk and reward finally look balanced if a tenant shows up and if Phase I keeps printing the $80 million quarterly rent guide. Until that lease is signed, GLXY still trades like a one-campus landlord with a crypto treasury attached.

Coinbase Stays Favored as Securitize Gets Cut

The Galaxy call sat inside a broader crypto-equity shuffle. Citi kept Coinbase at Buy and raised that target from $210 to $230, about 27.5% above the $180.39 close, and lifted its 2027 adjusted EBITDA forecast to about $2.9 billion. It said Coinbase growth is tilting toward derivatives, prediction markets, and stablecoins. Gemini came off Sell to Neutral, with the target up from $3.20 to $4.75, about 15.6% above the $4.11 close, after the stock’s slide. Securitize went the other way, from Buy to Neutral, even as the target moved to $14, on rich expectations and lockup supply.

CITI’S TUESDAY CRYPTO NOTE

Christiansen wrote that clients are looking past coin prices toward the pipes: tokenization, stablecoins, custody, and settlement. He also noted that U.S. rule-making is still moving even after the CLARITY Act failed, with the SEC using powers it already has. Circle and Bullish remain the desk’s highest-conviction names. Strategy kept a Buy and a $240 target.

We believe investors are increasingly rewarding infrastructure businesses over simple crypto exposure.

Peter Christiansen, Citi analyst, Tuesday research note

That line is the Galaxy upgrade in one sentence. Helios is infrastructure. Securitize is a tokenization vehicle that had already run. Gemini is a trading name Citi would no longer sell after the drawdown. The desk is sorting crypto stocks by whether they own hard assets or only market share.

October 27 Is the First Full Helios Quarter

Galaxy will release third quarter results on October 27 before Nasdaq opens. Novogratz and management will host a call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time, with a webcast on the investor site and YouTube. The company posted that notice on October 13, the same day as the Citi note.

Q3 is the first quarter in which Phase I should show the full $80 million leasing run rate, not a partial ramp. That print will either back Christiansen’s better-economics claim or leave $28 looking like a round number on a still-choppy crypto P&L. The call is also the next public window on Helios II talks, the 5.7 GW pipeline, and whether CoreWeave Phase II remains on the first-half 2027 hall schedule.

Citi’s Buy does not need Bitcoin to double. It needs Helios to keep paying, and it needs a second tenant on the 830 MW before the six-month clock runs out. As of the October 13 close at $19.71, the tape was still waiting for the lease, not the rating.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of Citi’s October 13 ratings and of Galaxy Digital’s public Helios and earnings disclosures. It is informational only and is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell GLXY, COIN, GEMI, SECZ, or any other security, and not a prediction of prices or lease outcomes. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser or broker before acting on analyst targets, data-center timelines, or crypto-equity ratings. Figures and ratings here reflect the company statements and the Citi note as published on the dates named and may change with the October 27 results, tenant news, or later research.