Cryptocurrency-adjacent stocks are taking a bath in conjunction with a major two-session drop in prices for bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency.
Shares of crypto mining firm Marathon Patent (MARA) – Get Report dropped 12.6% Monday to $20.70 after reaching a valuation of over $1 billion last week thanks to the meteoric rise of bitcoin to near $42,000 per coin.
Likewise, enterprise analytics software services provider MicroStrategy (MSTR) – Get Report shares dropped 8% to $489.08 per share Monday morning. CEO Michael Saylor announced in August that his company will be using bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset. Since then, the company has purchased 70,470 bitcoins that are currently valued at around $2.2 billion.
Last week, the total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies rose above $1 trillion as bitcoin led a dramatic jump in valuation.
On Sunday and Monday, however, Bitcoin posted its worst two-day drop since March, sliding as much as 21% as investors moved to perceived safe-haven assets — in this case not bitcoin.
Bitcoin hit a record high of nearly $42,000 on Friday on continued interest in the digital currency as a hedge against inflation and an alternative to the falling dollar. The price of bitcoin has more than quadrupled in the past 12 months.
However, stocks fell on Monday as investors recalibrated their strategies amid expectations that proceedings to impeach current President Donald Trump will move forward, and as a surge in coronavirus infections continued to pummel the U.S.
At last check, bitcoin prices were down 12.6% to $30,869 per coin, giving the digital currency a market capitalization of $574 billion.
