The start of 2024 brought significant statements and analyses for the cryptocurrency market. A Bitcoin analyst suggested that the drop in publicly traded major crypto and Bitcoin mining companies’ stocks, which saw a decline of up to 17% on the last trading day of 2023, was part of a healthy pullback.
According to data from Google Finance, Bitcoin mining firms took the hardest hit on the last trading day of 2023. Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) shares fell by 16.6% to $23.5, while Riot Platforms (RIOT) dropped by 12.1% to $15.5. Hut 8 Corp (HUT) lost 17.3% in value, and Hive Digital Technologies (HIVE) decreased by 15.1%.
MicroStrategy (MSTR), the corporate entity with the largest Bitcoin reserves, saw its shares decline by 5.4% to $631.6 on December 29th. Shares of the crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), which had surged over 400% in 2023, fell by 6.6% to $173.9 and further slipped to $171.7 in after-hours trading.
Amidst these events, Mitchell Askew, the lead analyst at Bitcoin mining firm Blockware Solutions, stated that the market downturn represented a healthy correction. He highlighted that Bitcoin mining companies had surpassed their previous 2023 peaks despite Bitcoin’s stable price in December at around $43,000.
Markus Thielen, research director at crypto financial services firm Matrixport, shared a similar sentiment, noting that they had warned investors about stock prices reaching fair value or being overvalued against Bitcoin in the previous week.
Askew also mentioned that the significant drop in Bitcoin mining companies’ stock prices could be related to investor concerns about the impact of the upcoming Bitcoin halving event in April on their balance sheets. However, he added that these concerns were largely unfounded, as public miners have the most efficient ASICs and the lowest power costs, allowing them to survive the halving without issues. nsquaredcrypto highlighted that Bitcoin rose by 152% in 2023 to $42,325, but at least 15 stocks related to the cryptocurrency performed even better, with MARA being one of the best-performing crypto-related stocks with an approximate 600% increase.