Bitcoin (BTC -2.54%) miners thought they were on a bull run, but that ended at about 8 p.m. ET on Sunday night when the price of Bitcoin dropped. After trading above $43,900 late in the day, the value of Bitcoin has dropped to $40,900 as of this writing, and most of that drop happened in a matter of minutes last night.
Miners fell across the industry with everyone dropping double digits today. TeraWulf (WULF -0.80%) was down as much as 23.5% in trading, Bit Digital (BTBT 3.59%) dropped 19.7%, Marathon Digital (MARA 2.21%) was down 15.2%, and Riot Platforms (RIOT -1.49%) was off 14.5% at its low.
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Bitcoin's rapid fall
Weekend trading often has less liquidity than normal trading days so assets will often see bigger moves on Saturday and Sunday. That played a role in yesterday's drop, but shares didn't recover after the fall.
Miners are down even more than Bitcoin because they're a leveraged play on the industry, generating Bitcoin from mining operations as well as holding Bitcoin on the balance sheet. This means the drop in Bitcoin will hurt both the income statement and the balance sheet of these companies.
Investors are also worried about Bitcoin's next halving, which is expected to take place in 2024. Miners will only get half of the Bitcoins per block as they previously did, which will effectively lower margins for all of these companies.
Bitcoin giveth, Bitcoin taketh away
The drop in Bitcoin is why miners fell today, but the drop in Bitcoin itself is a little mysterious since it came so late in the weekend. Last week's economic news like a strong jobs report would have likely moved the market earlier.
CoinDesk has reported that funding rates of perpetual futures contracts could have led to some of the drop. Funding rates are payments between long and short positions that are collected every eight hours and a positive funding rate indicates futures trade at a premium to the spot market. That funding rate dropped to under 0.1%, indicating less leverage in the market, likely by formerly bullish traders.
Bitcoin continues to be a volatile asset and investors need to understand the risk of both cryptocurrency as well as the miners involved in the industry. Bitcoin is being treated by most traders as a store of digital value and a trading asset, which means the value moves with the market's sentiment. As other cryptocurrencies and blockchains improve speed and efficiency, it appears less likely Bitcoin itself, or the Bitcoin blockchain, will be used as a form of payment.
I think the mining stocks are especially risky right now given the volatility in Bitcoin and the upcoming halving. If revenue falls significantly for each block it could put these companies in a precarious position. If you're buying mining stocks, understand that it's a very leveraged position in Bitcoin and may ultimately end in disaster if Bitcoin drops.
