The crypto market’s small bull run in early 2023 has also benefited the cryptocurrency-related stock sector, with the share price of both Coinbase and Riot Blockchain rising.
Coinbase’s recent stock performance
Coinbase landed on the stock exchange in April 2021, at the height of the bubble.
The initial price was even around $350, which was a peak touched again in November of the same year, also at the height of the bubble.
In contrast, 2022 was a year to forget, with a collapse of as much as 91% from the highs of November 2021.
The lowest peak was reached in late December and early January 2023, when Coinbase’s share price had plummeted to around $32, but then there was a big bounce.
Basically, the trend of COIN stock on the Nasdaq follows fairly closely that of the crypto market, with some differences.
For example, Bitcoin’s annual price high was a few days ago, while Coinbase’s annual share price high occurred in early February.
In other words, in the first 30 days of the year Coinbase outperformed even Bitcoin, with a resounding +177%, which not surprisingly was then followed by a correction.
However, the correction did not bring the price back to $32, but just above $50, and then kicked off a new small bull run that brought it back above $80 after mid-March.
However, the peaks of early February and 21 March were not confirmed, and the Coinbase share price later returned below $70.
If, however, we compare the overall performance from late 2022 to the present, the performance of Coinbase’s share price appears to be similar to that of Bitcoin’s price.
In other words, the path still looks decidedly similar, only paradoxically the Coinbase share price turns out to be much more volatile than that of Bitcoin.
Analysis of Riot Blockchain stock
The price of Riot Blockchain’s stock, on the other hand, has been slightly different, although in line with that of the crypto market.
It is worth specifying, however, that the exact name under which RIOT stock is listed on Nasdaq is now Riot Platforms, and no longer Riot Blockchain.
RIOT stock has been listed even before Bitcoin was born, although obviously back then it had nothing to do with blockchain, which did not yet exist, or with the crypto market, which was still non-existent.
Therefore comparisons with that distant past are meaningless, and it is better to just analyze its stock market performance from 2018 onward.
Curiously, the highest peak in recent years was neither in April/May 2021, nor in November, but in February.
In other words, the resounding speculative bubble that had formed on the price of this stock, with +2,300% in just five months, burst well before the one that swelled in 2021 on the crypto market.
Note that 2022 was a very bad year for RIOT, plummeting from $79 to $3, but the price never fell below the October 2020 starting level of $2.5. In fact, during 2020 it had even dropped to $0.5, so compared to 2022, 2022 was not bad at all.
On the other hand, the speculative bubble that swelled between November 2020 and February 2021 on this stock was really exaggerated, so much so that what happened to Riot’s price in 2022 was completely natural.
2023 opened with a price of about $3.5, but from that level it practically did nothing but rise.
By mid-January it had risen above $6, while shortly after mid-March it had also risen above $9.
It made its annual high during yesterday’s session, at over $14. In other words, it has risen more than 300% since the beginning of the year.
In other words, the parabola has been very similar to that of Bitcoin’s price, only much more pronounced.
Just as with Coinbase, this is a stock that follows the trend of the crypto market, but with even greater volatility.
In this particular case the volatility is definitely very pronounced, more so than Coinbase, and the trend over the months is much more similar to that of Bitcoin than COIN.