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Crypto stocks surge: Coinbase up 69%, MicroStrategy up 74% since lows

January 18, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitfarms

Crypto-related stocks, ETFs and tokens have all surged in price so far in 2023 despite experts expecting the Federal Reserve to continue hiking interest rates.

The share price of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has surged by 69% since its all time lows and other crypto-related stocks including business intelligence firm MicroStrategy have recorded similar jumps with green candles all around since the start of 2023.

The share price of Coinbase fell as low as $31.95 on Jan. 6, before shooting up to $54.14 by the close of trading on Jan. 17.

*Coinbase’s share price for the last month. Source: Yahoo Finance*

The rising share price will likely be accompanied by a huge sigh of relief for Coinbase executives after a challenging 2022 saw it cut 20% of its workforce and decide to wind down its Japanese operations. Despite the surge, COIN remains more than 84% below its all time high.

Other crypto-related stocks such as MicroStrategy and digital payments company Block Inc. have also posted strong gains in the new year.

MicroStrategy's share price has increased to nearly $236 from a low of just over $135 on Dec. 29 — representing an increase of over 74% — while Jack Dorsey’s Block has seen its share price increase by a muted but still respectable 27%, after rebounding from a low of under $59 on Dec. 28 to over $75.

The rebound has been even more dramatic for crypto mining stocks. Bitfarms and Marathon Digital Holdings recorded surges of 140% and 120% respectively throughout the first two weeks of the year.

Crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also rebounded to a lesser degree with Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI) more than doubling its price from a low of just over $4 on Dec. 28 to over $8.

The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) jumped from over $10 on Dec. 28 to a current price of around $13 — increasing by just under a third.

Even Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has managed to regain some of its 2022 losses, after increasing from a low of $7.76 on Dec. 28 to a current price of $11.72, a 51% increase.

While the trust is designed to mirror the price of Bitcoin (BTC) it often trades at a discount or premium to the value of its underlying holdings and is now sitting at a discount of just over 36% after having traded at over a 45% discount on Dec. 28.

Some pundits believe Bitcoin in particular has skyrocketed on the back of the positive inflation figures from the United States released on Jan. 12 — having increased in price by over 17% since then — but it is interesting to note that Dec. 28 seemed to represent a market bottom across many cryptocurrencies and stocks.

Total #crypto market cap is back over 1 trillion dollars!!! pic.twitter.com/wS4N9qjA4G
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) January 17, 2023

While the recent surge in crypto-related stocks is bound to be a huge relief to those who have invested in them, it is worth noting that many of these companies have a long way to go to return to thier all-time highs, as highlighted by a Jan. 10 tweet from financial advisor Genevieve Roch-Decter.

Crypto stocks over the last year:

Voyager -99.7%
Silvergate -90.8%
Marathon Digital -83.1%
Coinbase -82.3%
HIVE Blockchain -81.3%
MicroStrategy -63.9%
— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) January 10, 2023

100%: Public Bitcoin miners sold almost everything they mined in 2022

December 28, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Argo

Publicly listed Bitcoin miners sold off nearly everything they mined in 2022 but appear to have started accumulating reserves once again.

Publicly listed Bitcoin (BTC) miners sold off almost all of the Bitcoin they mined throughout 2022, leading to a debate over whether the sales created "a persistent headwind" for the Bitcoin price or not.

Analyst Tom Dunleavy from blockchain research firm Messari shared the data in a Dec. 26 tweet, indicating that approximately 40,300 of the 40,700 BTC mined by Core Scientific, Riot, Bitfarms, Cleans Park, Marathon, Hut8, HIVE, Iris Energy, Argo and Bit Digital from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 was sold off.

BTC miners sell roughly 100% of the coins they mine

The 10 public bitcoin miners
detailed here mined ~40.7k BTC and sold ~40.3k in 2022

This is a persistent headwind for BTC and for no other reason a good thesis to be bullish the ETHBTC ratio trade pic.twitter.com/L1iI6Z07p7
— Tom Dunleavy (@dunleavy89) December 26, 2022

The reserves held by mining firms have decreased considerably during the latter half of 2022, particularly throughout November, as the crypto industry reeled from the effects of the FTX fallout.

*Miner reserves vs Bitcoin price from Jul. 1 to Dec. 28. Source: CryptoQuant.*

Dunleavy believes that miners consistently selling off newly produced Bitcoin places downward pressure on the price of the leading cryptocurrency.

However, some industry commentators such as BitMEX’s former CEO, Arthur Hayes, believe the selling pressure created by the increased sales of Bitcoin miners is negligible.

He opined in a Dec. 9 blog post that “even if miners sold all the Bitcoin they produced each day, it would barely impact the markets at all.”

According to Bitcoin Visuals, on Dec. 26 the daily trading volume for Bitcoin was $12.2 billion. The outflow from miners on the same day, according to CryptoQuant, was 919 BTC ($15.35 million), which represents just 0.13% of the total volume traded.

Miner's reserves have rebounded slightly during December, increasing by nearly 1%. The figure contributes to the view shared in a Dec. 27 post by crypto analyst IT Tech that the situation for miners appears to be stabilizing.

#Bitcoin miners - update. Is there anything to worry about?
1.
Miner Outflow
Miner Inflow
Miner Reserve
White line on the bottom - miner to Exchange flow

2. Mining difficulty
3. Miner selling power
4. Hashrate 7D MA

Full analysishttps://t.co/E3o0cgaNxu
— IT Tech (@IT_Tech_PL) December 27, 2022

Miners have faced significant headwinds throughout the year, with high electricity prices, falling crypto market prices and a higher mining difficulty eating into their bottom line.

With the cost of production for miners increasing while the Bitcoin price has been decreasing, miners such as Core Scientific have been forced to sell some of their reserves at a loss to fund their ongoing operations and efforts to expand.

Bitfarms