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Marathon Digital Up 13.5% in Premarket as Bitcoin Soars Beyond $34,000
Shares of Marathon Digital soared 13.5% in Tuesday premarket after Bitcoin surged above $34,000 in an unexpected pump.
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Bitcoin (BTC) staged a massive pump, with its price reaching as high as $35,300 on Tuesday, driven by positive developments regarding the approvals of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The optimism was also felt in crypto stocks, with Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: $MARA) and Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: $RIOT) seeing double-digit gains in premarket trading.
Bitcoin Above $35,000 for the First Time Since May 2022
Bitcoin saw a significant price rise on Tuesday, hitting the intraday high of $35,300 before retreating to $34,442 in the following hours. This was the first time BTC pierced through the $35,000 threshold since May 2022.
The abrupt upswing comes amid the latest eruption of market optimism caused by growing expectations that the US SEC will sooner or later approve the launch of a spot Bitcoin ETF. The renewed investor confidence was reflected in a substantial increase in overall trading volumes across spot markets.
One development was particularly well received among investors. Notably, analyst Scott Johnsson noted on X.com that BlackRock, one of the Wall Street giants that filed an application for a spot BTC ETF in recent months, secured a “CUSIP” license and may initiate the process of “seeding” its spot ETF with cash soon.
Senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunus replied to Johnsson’s post, saying that seeding an ETF would not cost “a lot of money,” and would be enough to get the product running. However, the expert acknowledged that those developments were a good sign overall, representing “another step in the process of launching.”
The positive sentiment in the crypto markets and the consequent Bitcoin pump spilled into crypto-related stocks. Namely, shares of Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital surged 13.5% in premarket trading, while Riot Blockchain and Coinbase stocks jumped 13.6% and 7.7%, respectively.
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Marathon’s Remarkable 2023 Performance Continues
The significant premarket surge in Marathon Digital’s stock is the latest boost to the remarkable year the cryptocurrency mining company has had in terms of its stock performance.
The company’s shares are already up more than 157% year-to-date, driven by improved earnings results in recent quarters and a much more favorable crypto market environment than the 2022 crisis.
Earlier this month, Marathon said it had produced 1,242 bitcoin in September, marking a 16% month-on-month increase and a 245% jump from a year ago. The company’s chairman and CEO said the increase “was due to improved uptime and decreased curtailment activity in Texas.”
Marathon witnessed a remarkable 508% increase in installed hash rate year-over-year, from 3.8 exahashes per second (EH/s) to 23.1 EH/s.
Could the latest Bitcoin jump be the start of a longer bull run for crypto markets? Let us know in the comments below.
Tim Fries
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
