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The Coinbase application on a smartphone
Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg
Shares in companies sensitive to the price of Bitcoin were moving higher on Thursday as the largest cryptocurrency rallied to close to $43,000.
Cryptocurrency exchange
Coinbase
(ticker: COIN), digital payments group
Block
(SQ), crypto-focused bank
Silvergate Capital
(SI), and Bitcoin miners
Riot Blockchain
(RIOT) and
Marathon Digital
(MARA) all gained around 3% in early trading.
The
S&P 500
was up 1%, with the technology-focused
Nasdaq Composite
nearly 2% higher.
Bitcoin,
meanwhile, rose more than 2% over the past 24 hours, surging past the $42,000 level and nearing $43,000, rallying higher after a recent selloff. Prices for the leading crypto fell below $39,000 on Monday before bouncing back above $40,000 on Tuesday and rising again on Wednesday.
“Bitcoin is trading in a positive zone,” said Alexander Mamasidikov, the co-founder of digital bank Mineplex. “The positive growth momentum in the digital currency is a continuation of the rejuvenation recorded yesterday when Bitcoin printed its highest price in more than seven days.”
The stocks that gained in tandem with Bitcoin are those with significant holdings of the cryptocurrency or those actively engaged in business operations in the digital asset space.
Investors in
Coinbase
may also be eyeing some other news. The group is in the final stages of acquiring Turkish crypto exchange BtcTurk for around $3.2 billion, according to a report from Mergermarket, which cited five anonymous sources.
According to one of those sources, part of the deal may be structured as a share swap, and in the early days of the negotiations the deal was valued at up to $5 billion—before the price of Bitcoin and devaluation of the Turkish lira caused the price to drop. A term sheet for the deal was signed last week and due diligence is under way, Mergermarket reported.
Neither Coinbase nor BtcTurk immediately responded to a request for comment from Barron’s.
If it is executed, a deal to buy BtcTurk would mark a significant international expansion for Coinbase into a market where the local currency has proven to be extremely volatile. The lira has lost more than 40% relative to the U.S. dollar over the past year.
Turkey had some 2.5 million owners of crypto in 2021, amounting to almost 3% of its population, according to an analysis from Singaporean blockchain group TripleA.
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@dowjones.com
