Crypto-related stocks were pummeled on Wednesday with recent high-flying Bitcoin miners with artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure taking the biggest hit.
Bitfarms (Bitf), Cipher Mining (CIFR), Hut 8 (hut) and Tumbled 10%-15% in the first hours of the session. Galaxy (GLXY), the digital asset investment firm with a growing data center operation, was beaten 15% more than paring all gains after Tuesday’s earnings report.
Coinshares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI), a proxy for the sector, is 7% lower.
Crypto stocks outside of mining haven’t been spared either. Bakkt Holdings (BKKT), which advanced more than 300% earlier this month, plunged another 7.5% and is now down nearly 40% for the week. Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate bitcoin holder, slipped 4% to below $290.
A check of other names such as Coinbase (coin), Robinhood (Hood), Bullish (BLSH) and Gemini finds sharper losses in the 5%-6% range.
Although still holding the $108,000 area, Bitcoin remained lower after touching $114,000 on Tuesday. On Wall Street, the NASDAQ is walking a 1% decline, with chipmakers particularly hard.
BTC Miners AI Trade is cooling
The steep drawdown among BTC miners suggests that their multi-month rally, fueled by investor optimism for picking up lucrative data center deals, has petered out as markets turned risk-off.
At the peak of the AI and high-performance computing bull run, the combined market capitalization of related companies exceeded $95 billion. It has since declined to nearly $82 billion, according to farside data.
Bitfarms (Bitf) climbed more than 400% since September but has since fallen about 40%, now trading above $4 per share. Iren (Iren), which has reached almost 400% year to date and 200% since September, is down around 30% from the all-time high of $73, currently trading near $52.
