Dado Ruvic/Reuters
- Cryptocurrency miners are soaring on Friday as Bitcoin recovers from its recent fall.
- Shares of Marathon Patent Group, Riot Blockchain, and Bit Digital all jumped double digits on Friday before paring gains.
- Bitcoin was up as much as 15% before falling slightly.
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Crypto mining stocks-including Marathon Patent Group, Riot Blockchain, Bit Digital, and others-are soaring on Friday as Bitcoin’s recovery continues.
Crypto miners saw their share prices plummet through January after Bitcoin fell from January 8 highs of over $40,000, momentarily dropping below $30,000 this week for the first time since Jan 2.
In the past two days though Bitcoin has recovered over 20%, and crypto mining stocks are soaring in response.
Shares of Marathon Patent Group were up as much as 20%, Bit Digital was up as much as 18%, and Riot Blockchain was up as much as 21% on the day before the stocks pared gains.
Bitcoin was up as much as 15%.
The big jump for crypto miners and for Bitcoin comes after the US Federal Reserve said on Wednesday they plan to keep monetary conditions at historically accommodative levels.
“In terms of tapering, it’s just premature,” Powell said. “We said we’d want to see substantial, further progress towards our goals before we modify our asset purchase guidance. It’s just too early to be talking about dates. We need to see actual progress.”
The move by the federal reserve is a big boost for Bitcoin, which is often seen as a hedge against fiscal and monetary imprudence.
Oki Matsumoto, CEO of Monex Group, told CoinDesk, “there’s a crazy amount of money being printed right now, so the value of money is going down. Assets with limited supply, like bitcoin, real estate or shares/stocks, those price tags are going up,”
Bitcoin’s move higher on Friday was also helped by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, including #Bitcoin in his Twitter bio.
The bullish news for crypto miners is valuable to those who bought the recent dip in the cryptocurrency.
Marathon Patent Group was able to net strong gains after the company purchased some $150 million in bitcoin at an average price of $31,167.79 per coin, the company announced earlier this week.
Merrick Okamoto, Marathon’s CEO and chairman, said in a statement after the purchase, “we also believe that holding part of our Treasury reserves in bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than holding US Dollars,” so far Okamoto has been right.
Based on today’s prices, the 4,812.66 BTC that Marathon bought will be worth over $180 million.
Still, Bitcoin bears are still out there, despite the latest jump higher.
Gabriel Makhlouf, a European Central Bank governing council member, even said Bitcoin investors need to be prepared to “lose all their money,” per Bloomberg.
Shares of Marathon Patent Group traded at $22.03 as of 10:45 AM EST, while Riot Blockchain and Bit Digital traded at $22.20 and $20.70 respectively.