There was no mystery behind the rise of Cipher Mining (CIFR 12.10%) stock on Wednesday, as it easily surmounted the hump of Hump Day with a nearly 12% increase in price. The good performance of the crypto it mines and an encouraging operational update were the catalysts for that pop. Which, incidentally, trounced the S&P 500 index's 0.6% gain that day.
A bounce by the crypto champion
That foundational crypto for Cipher Mining is, of course, Bitcoin. Following a mini-rout that saw the No. 1 coin retreat from its record high, it was staging something of a rally on Wednesday. A more valuable Bitcoin is beneficial to the entities that mine it, for obvious reasons.
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Rewinding a bit in time, after market close on Tuesday Cipher Mining published its regular monthly update for September. The market clearly liked what it heard from the company.
During the month, Cipher Mining minted 251 Bitcoin, which was up rather notably from the 241 it produced in August. This was despite a slight decline in total deployed mining rig count (to 114,000 from the month-ago 115,000). The figure for Bitcoin sold was much higher at 158 versus 42.
Business diversification
While those month-over-month increases were encouraging, investors should bear in mind that Cipher Mining is quickly getting past its days as a pure-play Bitcoin miner. Like some of its peers, it's leveraging its assets to push into the hot segments of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure hosting.
