Bitcoin’s record price is sending NASDAQ listed companies soaring
Investors reveal their hunger for Bitcoin as a 6% drop is reversed in less than 24 hours thanks to eager buyers.
- BTC price drops 6% before recovering to $48,000.
- Bitcoin has now spent two consecutive months above 2017’s all-time-high of $20,000.
- Crypto mining revenue on track to set a new monthly record with mining stocks benefiting.
Bitcoin is trading at $48,338 at the time of writing, down 1.3% from yesterday’s new all-time high of $49,082. The losses were looking likely to be much worse throughout the day with the price of Bitcoin sinking more than 6% to as low as $46,160.
Bitcoin is showing sustained demand resulting in reduced volatility and a relatively stable price range for a currency that has been famously unpredictable. Since breaking through its previous all-time high of $20,000 two months ago, the price has managed to stay above that historical threshold. More recently, Bitcoin has managed to stay above $30,000 for the past 30 days.
Following Tesla’s groundbreaking acquisition of $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, price has been sustained above $40,000 with new all-time-highs being set on three occasions since. With many industry heavyweights such as BNY Mellon, Mastercard, Paypal and Visa all moving into digital assets, there is little to suggest waning demand for Bitcoin in the short-term.
Bitcoin mining revenue on track to set new records
The image below shows mining revenue data for the month of February 2021. Both the Bitcoin block rewards and the transaction fees are showing consistent and strong growth.
Monthly Bitcoin mining revenue since September 2020. Source: TheBlockCrypto
Mining revenue data released by TheBlockCrypto indicates that the month of February is on track to better the previous month’s revenue stream. The month of January saw revenues of $1.12 billion for miners. As of today, mining revenue for the month of February is at $636.9 million, on track to generate more than $1.2 billion at current demand.
Mining stocks have been gaining over recent months as the price of Bitcoin has continued to build on new highs. Marathon Patents Group (NASDAQ: MARA) is up more than 1,500% over three months at $38.60.
Other miners have experienced similar stock gains with shares in Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) rising to $48.25, up over 1,000% from three months ago when the price was around $3.50. Bit Digital (NASDAQ: BTBT) is also up 500% in the three months to date.
Prices for mining hardware have risen by similar percentages with orders for high powered Bitcoin mining machines hemorrhaging. Bitmain, the world’s largest producer of Bitcoin mining machines isn’t filling orders until August of this year according to its website.
Graphics processing cards (GPU), usually the reserve of computer gamers, are being rationed on distributors’ websites, with only one GPU per household and in many cases at inflated prices. Graphics cards were once used to mine Bitcoin but are now instead used for a range of other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum, Monero and Zcash.
Interested in cryptocurrency? Learn more about the basics with our beginner’s guide to Bitcoin, dive deeper by learning about Ethereum and see what blockchain can do with our simple guide to DeFi.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing
Picture: Finder
