What happened
Shares of Ebang International Holdings (EBON 5.37%) rose as much as 22.2% in early trading on Monday on some positive news about Bitcoin (BTC 5.13%). Shares settled as the day went on and closed 8.6% higher.
So what
Ebang launched the beta phase of a cryptocurrency exchange today with plans to expand to a wider audience next month. It didn't hurt that late on Sunday, Bitcoin was trading over $60,000, although it's fallen since then and is now about $56,500.
Image source: Getty Images.
It will take time to see just how much revenue Ebang's exchange can generate. But right now there's a lot of money being made by Bitcoin intermediaries, so this could be a highly profitable business by the end of the year.
Now what
Stocks like this trade wildly depending on whether Bitcoin is up or down on any given day. That's going to be the trend for the foreseeable future given how volatile the cryptocurrency has been. But the hope is that an exchange will turn Ebang into a growth stock long term as Bitcoin mining and trading becomes more mainstream. The company is still losing money for now, so watch for that to potentially change as this new business gets off the ground.
