The price of the digital asset crashed all the way from a mid-April high over $64,000, to $30,000 by late May – dragging many cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency stocks down with it.
Professional investors, billionaires and even publicly traded companies have maintained a keen interest in cryptos, too.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain have been part of that transformation.
The past few months have seen an explosion of companies offering Bitcoin as payments, or even the rise of companies holding the cryptocurrency on their balance sheet rather than cash.
“Cryptocurrency investing today is a bit like living in the early days of the 1850s gold rush, which involved more speculating than investing,” says John LaForge, Head of Real Asset Strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Here are seven cryptocurrency stocks that can help traditional investors get at least exposure to this asset class.
In the first quarter of this year, PayPal saw revenue rise 29% year-over-year, and total payment volume jumped 50%.
They collectively believe PayPal will average 24.1% earnings growth annually over the next three to five years.
Square , another payments company that’s known for its card-reading hardware used by small businesses, also made an announcement regarding Bitcoin in October.
“We believe that Bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future,” Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja said in a release.
our role is to facilitate customers’ access to Bitcoin.
In the meantime, as prices were peaking in April, JPM joined the growing number of old-school banks in climbing on the cryptocurrency craze.
Cryptocurrencies are generated from solving complex algorithms, rewarding those with the hardware to speedily get the job done.
NVDA’s GeForce RTX 3060 processor can generate an estimated profit of $3 per day – one of the highest levels in the industry – for miners of Ethereum, another popular cryptocurrency.
In its fiscal first quarter, Nvidia generated $155 million in revenue from crypto mining cards, and expects that to rise to $400 million in the second quarter.
Another “picks and shovels” play in the digital gold rush, Advanced Micro Devices has stalled a bit in 2021 following its red-hot run last year.
AMD, like Nvidia, develops high-performance processors used in a wide array of products, but primarily computers and servers.
In the first quarter of 2021, the company reported a 93% year-over-year jump in revenue.
While shares initially fell on the news, a push since then to all-time highs reflects optimism that AMD will benefit from the M&A move.
Most analysts tracked by S&P Global Market Intelligence are optimistic toward AMD stock, with 16 calling it a Strong Buy and seven saying Buy.
While its Bitcoin holdings have made the company far more valuable in recent months, it’s also transferred the digital currency’s volatility to shares.
And the Bitcoin section on the company’s website feeds directly to the Saylor-run website hope.com, which contains interviews, podcasts and other resources regarding the cryptocurrency.
Coinbase Global has had a rough ride since going public via a direct listing in the second quarter.
The recent drop in Bitcoin has brought out the “buy the dip” crowd, which likely means more trading volume, and therefore more revenue and profits for COIN.
Unlike traditional brokerages, where institutions lead, digital assets are still driven by retail investors.
It’s modeled on trusts such as the SPDR Gold Trust , which represent real, physical holdings of the underlying commodity.
ETFs typically trade very closely to their net asset value , meaning what you buy is what you get.
When Bitcoin prices went parabolic in 2017, for instance, traders piled into GBTC, sending the NAV to a premium of more than 100%.
When and if a Bitcoin ETF is ever approved, it’s possible demand for GBTC could plunge as the costs of an ETF would likely be lower.