What happened
Cryptocurrency is a hot commodity again Monday, and stocks involved in any aspect of the crypto economy are benefiting.
As of 1 p.m. EDT, shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC 1.89%) are up a solid 8.3%, and CleanSpark (CLSK +3.79%) has jumped 10.8%. Canaan (CAN 0.33%) is doing best of all -- up 22.4%! And you know what? This does all make sense.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
By now you've heard the news: Elon Musk is a Bitcoin (BTC +1.27%) fan again -- sort of.
Over the weekend, the Tesla (TSLA +0.63%) CEO tweeted out to his fans, first, a confirmation of the rumor that Tesla has sold off 10% of its Bitcoins. (Which sounds like bad news). But he also tweeted a promise: Once Tesla sees that Bitcoin miners have begun using renewable energy to power at least 50% of their mining, "Tesla will resume allowing" customers to buy Tesla cars with Bitcoin.
This is inaccurate. Tesla only sold ~10% of holdings to confirm BTC could be liquidated easily without moving market.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 13, 2021
When there's confirmation of reasonable (~50%) clean energy usage by miners with positive future trend, Tesla will resume allowing Bitcoin transactions.
Now what
Now here's the thing: At $40,100, Bitcoin prices today are up about 9% from where they were when the stock market closed on Friday. Since Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is essentially a big pile of Bitcoins, it makes sense that Grayscale stock would now be up a similar amount.
But it also makes sense that a stock like Canaan, which produces integrated circuits used in mining Bitcoin in China, would surge in anticipation that support for Musk could lead to even more price increases for the cryptocurrency, encouraging more mining, and more buying of computers with which to mine.
Finally, and to my mind perhaps most logically of all, is the rising price of CleanSpark. Generally speaking, CleanSpark makes software for energy regulation and energy efficiency, but more specifically, CleanSpark announced last month that through the use of "nuclear power, hydro-electric power, and solar," it can now mine Bitcoin using energy that is "95% ... carbon-free" (and has a goal to soon be 98% carbon-free).
That lines right up with the precondition that Elon Musk has set for getting Tesla back into the Bitcoin game -- and it would appear to make CleanSpark stock a logical beneficiary when he does.
