The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: PayPal, Square, Riot Blockchain, NVIDIA and CleanSpark
For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – February 10, 2021 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL, Square, Inc. SQ, Riot Blockchain, Inc. RIOT, NVIDIA Corporation NVDA and CleanSpark, Inc. CLSK.
Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:
How Long Will the Tesla-Driven Bitcoin Rally Last?
The price of Bitcoin has been going through the roof lately. Bitcoin soared about 200% last year. Institutional interest has mainly led to this buoyancy. The cryptocurrency took less than a month to cross the difference of $20,000 in value as it hit the $20,000 mark for the first time on Dec 16 and touched $40,000 on Jan 7. If this was not enough, bitcoin crossed the 47,000 mark on Feb 8.
The latest all-time high level was attained by virtue of Tesla’s investment of $1.5 billion, which made it the biggest company to show support to the otherwise controversial cryptocurrency.Tesla would start accepting payment for its electric vehicles in the currency. Before this, PayPal had also announced such a move. PayPal's competitor Square launched support for bitcoin back in 2018 through its Cash app. Square also bought $50 million in bitcoin in October as part of a larger investment in cryptocurrency.
Corporations’ greater acceptance in allowing customers to hold bitcoin and other virtual coins in their online wallets has been favoring the cryptocurrency. Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Libra has also been rebranded “Diem” in an effort to gain regulatory approval by refurbishing the project in a simpler manner. It is run by a consortium called the Diem Association.
David Marcus, the head of Facebook Financial, also known as F2, said he hopes the cryptocurrency called Diem will hit the market in 2021. A bitcoin ETF could finally see the day of the light in 2021 as VanEck recently filed an application with the SEC. Notably, the SEC had earlier rejected several bitcoin ETF proposals (read: VanEck Files for a Bitcoin ETF All Over Again).
More Corporate Acceptance Awaiting Ahead?
Antoni Trenchev, managing partner and co-founder of Nexo in London (one of the world’s biggest crypto lender), expects at least 10% of S&P 500 companies to remain invested in Bitcoin by the end of 2022, as quoted in a source.
Sergey Nazarov, the cofounder of Chainlink, said a few days back that “rising inflation and increasingly negative views of modern monetary policy are forcing investors to look for alternative ways to preserve the value of their capital,” as quoted on Businessinsider. Investors are probably viewing it as a hedge against inflation and an alternative to the depreciating dollar, per market watchers.
Will the Rally Continue?
The biggest problem with bitcoin mining is that the number of coins will be fixed. “Bitcoin was designed to be created at a fixed rate, which means miners must compete against each other to win coins. The number of bitcoins created annually automatically decreases over time and issuance will end with a total of 21 million bitcoins in circulation. The more time passes, the harder computers have to work to mine new bitcoins. There are currently more than 18 million bitcoins in circulation,” per a Reuters article.
So, there is no way that the 21 million will be exhausted soon. But will it be interesting to see what happens after that? Yes, “the bitcoin mining process provides bitcoin rewards to miners, but the reward size is decreased periodically to control the circulation of new tokens,” as indicated by an Investopedia article.
If more circulation of currency is not possible with economic growth, one should not expect much stability in that currency’s trading. Bitcoin has been extremely volatile in the past, and will continue to remain so in the future too. Plus, one should take a closer look at the inflationary scenario. If there is disinflation in various parts of the globe due to any further COVID-19 crisis, bitcoin may slip again.
Stocks to Play
Hence, it is wise bet on Crypto Innovators that are more stable. 'Crypto Innovators' are the stocks of "companies that service and transact in the segment of the economy dealing with crypto assets and distributed ledger technology (e.g., blockchain technology)."
Riot Blockchain– The Zacks Rank #3 company leverages its expertise and network to build and support blockchain technology companies. Shares surged 40.3% on Feb 8.
NVIDIA – The company is poised to benefit from its GPUs in the cryptocurrency space.Chinese cryptocurrency miners are dealing with a scarcity of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30 desktop graphics cards by turning to GeForce RTX 30-powered laptops, according to social media posts examined by Wccftech and Cointelegraph, as quoted on seekingalpha. NVDA was up 6.2% on Feb 8.
Cleanspark– The Zacks Rank #3 microgrid company provides energy software and control technology. From Dec 10, 2020 the first full-day of mining following the acquisition of its wholly owned subsidiary ATL Data Centers LLC, through the end of the calendar year, CleanSpark produced 31 bitcoins from its mining activities. Production since the first of the year has exceeded 4.3 bitcoins. The stock added 8.1% on Feb 8.
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