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Seemanta Dutta/Dreamstime.com
Coinbase
,
Marathon Digital
and other cryptocurrency-related stocks were extending losses Thursday after
Bitcoin
slumped and investors sold off the tech sector.
Coinbase (ticker: COIN) was down 1% to $232 in premarket trading Thursday after dropping more than 7% during the previous session as Bitcoin slid following the release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s meeting in December.
Marathon Digital (MARA) fell 2.3% early Thursday after sinking more than 13% on Wednesday;
Riot Blockchain
(RIOT) was down 2% Thursday after declining 12% on Wednesday; and
MicroStrategy
(MSTR) fell 1.6% following the previous session’s decline of 7.6%.
Bitcoin was at $42,904.23, down 8.3% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk. The decline by the world’s largest cryptocurrency coincided with a sharp downturn in tech stocks after Fed officials indicated that inflation readings and tight labor conditions could warrant an interest-rate increase “sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated.” Bitcoin has fallen 7.2% since the start of the year.
Ethereum,
the second-largest digital currency, was at $3,385.49, down 11.6% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk.
Bitcoin’s selloff could be another sign the cryptocurrency is acting more like a tech stock than a store of value, such as gold. The tech-heavy Nasdaq sank 3.3% on Wednesday, its largest one-day percentage drop since February.
Goldman Sachs has argued that Bitcoin could be worth $100,000 if investors accept that it really is digital gold.
Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com
