Bitcoin Treasury Company Rumble Eyes $1.17 Billion Acquisition of Tether-Owned AI Firm

In a move that could redefine its position in the tech landscape, Rumble, the video platform known for its “free speech” stance and growing presence as a Bitcoin treasury company, has announced a non-binding offer to acquire the German high-performance computing firm, Northern Data. The proposed all-stock transaction, valued at approximately $1.17 billion, is a bold play to thrust Rumble into the heart of the global artificial intelligence (AI) cloud race. This potential acquisition, which has the vocal support of stablecoin giant Tether, a majority shareholder in Northern Data, represents a significant strategic pivot for Rumble, moving it far beyond a simple competitor to platforms like YouTube.

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The Strategic Pivot: Rumble’s Ambitions Beyond Video

Founded as a haven for creators seeking an alternative to mainstream video platforms, Rumble has carved out a distinct niche for itself. The company, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker RUM, has built its brand around a commitment to free expression, attracting a large and dedicated audience, particularly among conservative commentators and a variety of other creators. However, recent financial reports suggest that the platform’s video-centric growth may be facing some headwinds.

In its latest second-quarter 2025 earnings report, Rumble announced revenue of $25.1 million, a 12% increase year-over-year. While this demonstrates solid growth, the report also highlighted a decline in Monthly Active Users (MAUs) to 51 million, down from 59 million in the previous quarter. Management attributed this dip to a natural slowdown in news and political commentary outside of a U.S. election cycle. Despite this, the company showed a marked improvement in its Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), which rose to $0.42, a 24% increase from the prior quarter. This positive trend was driven by a rise in subscription and licensing revenue, indicating a maturing monetization strategy.

Rumble’s leadership, including Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski, has made it clear that the company is in a new phase of “aggressive growth.” This strategy involves diversifying its business beyond just video streaming to encompass a full-fledged technology and infrastructure ecosystem. The company has already laid the groundwork for this expansion through several key initiatives. A new service, Rumble Cloud, has begun to build partnerships, including a collaboration with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and a strategic agreement with TRON DAO to expand its blockchain-based infrastructure. Most notably, the company has announced the upcoming launch of a crypto wallet, which will be powered by a partnership with MoonPay for seamless on- and off-ramps for digital assets. These moves collectively showcase a vision to create a comprehensive digital ecosystem that integrates content, cloud services, and cryptocurrency.

Northern Data: A Glimpse into a Cloud Powerhouse

At the center of Rumble’s ambitious plans is Northern Data AG, a German firm that has quietly established itself as a significant player in the high-performance computing (HPC) and AI data center space. The company is structured into three primary business divisions: Taiga Cloud, Ardent Data Centers, and Peak Mining.

Taiga Cloud is Northern Data’s GPU-as-a-service offering, providing customers with access to powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) essential for training complex AI models, running large language models (LLMs), and other intensive computing tasks. The company’s impressive hardware roster includes a large cluster of the latest generation of NVIDIA H100 and H200 GPUs, placing it among Europe’s largest regional providers of AI compute capacity. Ardent Data Centers complements this by providing the underlying infrastructure—colocation services and purpose-built data centers optimized for high-density, energy-efficient operations.

Northern Data’s financial trajectory has been marked by strong growth. The company reported a substantial 72% year-over-year revenue increase in the first half of 2025, driven by the success of its cloud and mining operations. However, the company has recently made a strategic decision to divest from its cryptocurrency mining business. A non-binding term sheet has been signed to sell the Peak Mining unit to U.S. Bitcoin miner Elektron Energy for up to $235 million. This divestiture signals a clear intention to focus exclusively on the high-growth AI and HPC sectors, a pivot that makes the company an ideal target for a forward-looking firm like Rumble. The proceeds from the sale are expected to be used to reduce an existing loan from Tether, a crucial step that simplifies Northern Data’s balance sheet ahead of the proposed merger.

Tether’s Expanding Empire: From Stablecoins to AI Infrastructure

The thread that connects all the pieces of this complex deal is Tether. The issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, has emerged as a powerhouse investor with a clear strategic vision. Tether’s business model is built on maintaining a one-to-one peg between USDT and the U.S. dollar, backed by a vast portfolio of reserves primarily consisting of U.S. Treasury bills. This has led to astounding profitability; in the second quarter of 2025, Tether reported a net profit of $4.9 billion, a staggering 277% increase from the same period a year prior. With over $127 billion in U.S. Treasury holdings, Tether has become a top-20 holder of U.S. debt globally, giving it immense financial firepower.

Tether’s growing influence has extended well beyond the crypto world. The company has made significant strategic investments in non-crypto technology firms, most notably its $775 million investment in Rumble in late 2024. This investment was founded on a mutual desire to challenge the dominance of Big Tech in areas of video and cloud computing. Tether’s controlling stake in Northern Data, which stood at approximately 54% before the acquisition offer, further cements its role as a central orchestrator of this deal.

Upon the completion of the acquisition, Tether is expected to become the single largest shareholder of Rumble’s Class A common stock. This is not just a passive investment; Tether has also committed to becoming a major customer of the combined entity, with a multi-year agreement to purchase GPUs from the newly integrated cloud and data center business. This pledge provides an immediate and substantial revenue stream, de-risking the acquisition for Rumble and creating a powerful, interconnected ecosystem where content, cloud infrastructure, and cryptocurrency are all linked by Tether’s capital and strategic vision.

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The Deal’s Mechanics and Market Reaction

Rumble’s proposal is an all-stock exchange offer, valuing Northern Data at approximately $1.17 billion based on Rumble’s current share price. The terms of the deal stipulate that each Northern Data shareholder who tenders their shares will receive 2.319 newly issued Class A Rumble shares in return. This would result in Northern Data shareholders owning roughly 33.3% of the combined company, assuming all shares are exchanged.

It’s an interesting financial play, as the offer values Northern Data’s stock at a slight discount to its recent trading price. The market’s initial reaction reflected this dynamic, with Rumble’s stock jumping significantly on the news, while Northern Data’s share price saw a drop in Frankfurt trading. The transaction is also contingent on several key factors, including the successful sale of Northern Data’s Peak Mining division and the amendment of Tether’s existing shareholder loan. Rumble’s intent is to structure the deal so that it assumes no liability for this outstanding debt, further solidifying its balance sheet.

The Broader AI Race: A Battle of Giants

This acquisition is more than just a corporate merger; it is Rumble’s entry into a fierce global competition. The AI data center market is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world, projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 26% through 2030. The demand for computational power, fueled by the rapid expansion of generative AI and machine learning, has led to a gold rush for data center capacity.

The market is currently dominated by a handful of mega-corporations. Tech giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have collectively pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to build and expand their AI infrastructure. For instance, in 2025 alone, Microsoft is planning to invest $80 billion in AI data centers, with Amazon and Google making similar commitments. These companies are building “hyperscale” data centers—massive, highly efficient facilities capable of handling the immense workloads required for modern AI.

By acquiring Northern Data, Rumble is not only gaining data center capacity but also acquiring access to Northern Data’s expertise and a large, established fleet of cutting-edge GPUs. Northern Data’s five data centers, including a new 180 MW facility under development in Maysville, Georgia, give Rumble the scale and physical infrastructure to compete. This move positions the combined company to offer “GPU-as-a-service” to a diverse set of clients, challenging the incumbents by providing a new, independent option in the AI cloud market. The strategic focus on colocation and cloud services also aligns with a growing trend in the industry, where companies are increasingly seeking to outsource their infrastructure needs to specialized providers.

The Freedom-First Infrastructure: Uniting Free Speech and Decentralization

Rumble’s identity as a “free speech” platform is deeply intertwined with its new strategic direction. The company’s leadership has repeatedly framed its expansion as a way to create an alternative to what it perceives as the centralized, controlled infrastructure of Big Tech. By building its own cloud and data center capabilities, and by integrating with decentralized technologies through its upcoming crypto wallet, Rumble is attempting to create a “freedom-first infrastructure” where creators and businesses are not dependent on the whims of a few dominant players.

Tether’s partnership further amplifies this narrative. As the leader in decentralized stablecoins, Tether’s core mission is to provide an alternative to traditional financial systems. The synergy between Rumble’s “free speech” content platform, its burgeoning crypto wallet, and the powerful, decentralized infrastructure of Northern Data, all backed by Tether, creates a formidable alliance. This is a deliberate strategy to build a parallel tech ecosystem, one that prioritizes open access and bypasses the traditional gatekeepers of both media and finance. The upcoming launch of the Rumble Wallet, which will support both Bitcoin and stablecoins like USDT, is a concrete example of this vision in action, enabling creators and users to transact within a self-contained, independent digital economy.

The combined company would be an intriguing case study in a new kind of conglomerate, one that merges content, cryptocurrency, and AI infrastructure under a shared ideological banner. With the acquisition, Rumble will hold a powerful set of assets that could allow it to not only host video content but also to power the very AI that might one day be used to generate that content, all while providing an alternative payment rail for its creators.

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photo source: Google

By: Montel Kamau

Serrari Financial Analyst

12th August, 2025