Bitcoin juggernaut Strategy, Ethereum giant BitMine Immersion Technologies, and crypto exchange Coinbase all looked much more verdant Friday as the price of BTC stabilized after dropping 14% on Thursday.
Strategy, which trades on the Nasdaq under the MSTR ticker, had gained 22% since the opening bell and was recently changing hands for $131. The company holds 713,502 BTC in its treasury, which was acquired for an average price of $76,047. But after BTC took a plunge yesterday, the Virginia software company is now underwater on its BTC stash.
Bitcoin was recently trading for $69,500 after stabilizing since yesterday’s dive. It has gained nearly 6% in the past day, but is still 16% lower than it was this time last week, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko. The price of Bitcoin fell as low as $60,225 on Thursday, CoinGecko data shows.
MSTR reported a $12.4 billion Q4 loss during its earnings call late Thursday afternoon. “Strategy has built a digital fortress anchored by 713,502 Bitcoin, and our shift to digital credit, which aligns with our indefinite Bitcoin horizon,” Strategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said in a statement to shareholders.
But at least two analysts have tempered their optimism for the firm. Canacord Genuity analyst Joseph Vafi cut his price forecast for MSTR by 60%, from $474 to $185; BTIG analyst Andrew Harte made a similar price forecast cut, from $630 to $250. Both analysts maintained their buy ratings, though, saying that there’s still significant upside for investors.
Meanwhile, Tom Lee’s BitMine — the only Ethereum treasury to have added more ETH to its coffers in January — has seen its share price jump 15% to about $20 since the New York open. The company commands a treasury of 4,285,125 ETH that’s worth about $8.7 billion at current prices. At the time of writing, BMNR was sitting on a $7.5 billion unrealized loss.
But Ethreum treasuries work a little differently than their Bitcoin counterparts. BMNR has staked $6.7 billion worth of its ETH. Lee said last week that when the company has fully staked its ETH through MAVAN and its staking partners, it will be earning more than $1 million per day in rewards via the Ethereum network.
Coinbase has also staged a comeback, seeing its price rise 10% to $161 at the time of writing.
Coinbase, which trades under the COIN ticker on the Nasdaq, tends to stabilize quickly during turbulent markets. That’s because volatility that leads to high trading volumes bolsters the bottom line for Coinbase, Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said previously.
“The increase in volatility had a meaningful impact on our transaction revenue,” she said in February 2024, right after spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved for trading in the U.S. “We saw strong growth and reengagement from both simple and advanced traders. Notable average trading volumes materially increased among our advanced traders.”
Other major crypto stocks surging Friday include Bitcoin miners MARA Holdings and CleanSpark, both up more than 19% to recent prices of $8.06 and $9.87 respectively, with miners Terawulf and Riot Platforms up nearly as much on the day. And institutional crypto firm Galaxy Digital is up more than 17% on the day to a price of nearly $20 after seeing its shares dive earlier this week following an earnings loss.
