Marathon Digital,
the company that mines Bitcoin, was falling sharply early Thursday, even after the digital currency’s rally helped swing the company to profit.
Marathon reported $0.66 of earnings per share in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $3.13 a year earlier. Revenue beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations as well.
“We walked away impressed by Marathon’s longer term vision/strategy,” J.P. Morgan analysts led by Reginald L. Smith wrote in a Thursday note. “The company is well positioned to drive meaningful hashrate growth in ‘24 and beyond.”
Nevertheless, the stock was down 15% just after the market opened. The drop follows an impressive run that tracked Bitcoin’s price higher. Marathon shares are still more than 300% higher than they were12 months ago, and are up 13% since the start of the year.
Bitcoin this week topped $60,000 for the first time since late 2021. It’s being helped by the introduction of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and a coming change to how Bitcoin miners are compensated that will slow supply growth of the digital asset.
Other crypto stocks have also done well recently.
Coinbase
shares have reached their highest level in two years and were down just 1.6% in early trading.
MicroStrategy
was up 2.8%, and
Hut 8
retreated 5.2%.
Write to Brian Swint at brian.swint@barrons.com
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