by Ian Cooper

With Bitcoin booming, keep an eye on mining stocks.

That’s because as Bitcoin pushes higher, the miners typically follow. In fact, with Bitcoin rallying about $9,000 higher over the last week, it came as no surprise that mining stocks, like Marathon Digital, Riot Platforms, or HIVE Blockchain went along for the ride.

All with cryptocurrencies showing big signs of life with the latest banking crises with Silicon Valley, First Republic, and now Credit Suisse.  As noted by Coindesk.com, “As the banks fail, opt out and buy bitcoin. That narrative is strong enough to propel the price.”

And while there’s hope Bitcoin can see $30,000, others believe BTC could run to $1 million in the next 90 days – seriously. 

As noted by Bitcoinist.com, “Balaji Srinivasan, a former CTO of Coinbase, has placed a $2 million bet that Bitcoin would hit the $1 million price mark in 90 days. This bet was in response to financial expert James Medlock who proposed a $1 million bet that the US would not enter hyperinflation despite the recent collapse of banks in the country.”

“In a Twitter thread on March 17, Balaji explained his views and why he was proposing the bet. He claims the current banking situation is similar to the 2008 financial crisis, but this time, central bankers, banks, and regulators have lied to all dollar holders and depositors. According to the investor, the banking crisis was beyond fractional reserves as banks do not have enough funds on a market-to-market basis to cover withdrawals.”

While it’s not likely BTC will see $1 million in 90 days, can you imagine if it did?

Not only would that make BTC holders very happy, it would send mining stocks to the moon. In fact, even though we don’t believe BTC will see $1 million in 90 days, we’re still bullish on BTC, and the mining stocks, including:

Marathon Digital (MARA)

“We successfully energized nearly 19,000 Bitcoin miners across multiple facilities in February, with over 8,000 of these units consisting of S19 XPs,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s chairman and CEO. “During the month, we increased our hash rate to 9.5 exa-hashes, a 30% increase from the prior month. We also increased our average bitcoin produced per day by 10% compared to January, producing 683 Bitcoin in February.”

Riot Platforms (RIOT)

“February was another month of operational excellence for Riot, during which we produced 675 Bitcoin in the shortest month of the year, and despite one of the largest increases in mining difficulty in recent history,” said Jason Les, CEO of Riot. “We have also continued to make progress on repairs to our immersion buildings, including Building G, where we now anticipate a return to full operations by the second half of 2023. Once achieved, this will bring back 1.9 EH/s of hash rate currently offline and not included in our reported hash rate capacity.”  

Global X Blockchain & Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITS)

With an expense ratio of 0.65%, the BITS ETF takes long positions in U.S. listed bitcoin futures contracts and invests, directly and/or indirectly, in companies positioned to benefit from the increased adoption of blockchain technology, as noted by Global X ETFs. While BITS doesn’t invest in Bitcoin directly, it does offer investors exposure to crypto companies working on next-generation technologies, creating the potential for outsized return, added Global X ETFs.