An array of bitcoin mining units inside a container at a CleanSpark facility in College Park, Georgia, on April 22, 2022.<\/p>\n
Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Crypto stocks were some of the top gainers Monday as the broader market sold off and capital rotated away from chip and AI infrastructure names. <\/p>\n
Bitmine Immersion<\/a> led the group, surging 11% after the ether accumulator increased its holdings of the cryptocurrency by nearly 10,000 coins worth about $19.4 million at current prices, according to a Monday update<\/a>. Fellow ETH treasury firm Sharplink Gaming <\/a>jumped 6%.<\/p>\n Bitcoin treasury pioneer Strategy<\/a> was up 7% after it added to its cash buffer for a fifth straight week rather than buy bitcoin. <\/p>\n Coinbase Global, <\/a>BitGo<\/a> and Figure Technology<\/a> were all up between 4% and 6%.<\/p>\n Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group <\/a>gained 2% after announcing it has acquired IBM’s portfolio<\/a> of more than 1,000 blockchain-related patents worldwide. It did not disclose details of the acquisition.<\/p>\n The sector-wide move came amid a sharp sell-off in oil prices, lower Treasury yields and continued risk-off approach to memory chip stocks and other, direct AI plays.<\/p>\n “Today’s weakness partly reflects concern around capex requirements and whether companies across the miner-to-AI group may need to raise incremental capital at higher costs to fund their development pipelines,” Donovan told CNBC. <\/p>\n Chip and AI infrastructure stocks were under pressure as concern over circular financing spread, along with intensifying competition from Chinese semiconductor companies. The resulting risk repricing accelerated capital rotation into alternative themes, including crypto, said Owen Lau, analyst at ClearStreet.<\/p>\n AI-exposed bitcoin miners were uniformly in the red. <\/p>\n Cipher Mining<\/a> led the group with an 8% decline. Hut 8<\/a> and Terawulf<\/a> fell 6% and 4%, respectively. The weakness even extended to pure play bitcoin miners. Riot Platforms<\/a> lost 5%, Mara Holdings<\/a> sank 3% and CleanSpark<\/a> was lower by 4%. Core Scientific<\/a>, which has mostly pivoted away from bitcoin mining, was down 9%.<\/p>\n Nvidia’s reported discussions to provide financial support for OpenAI’s plan to lease a new AI data center<\/a> in Ohio underscored the growing role of credit in enabling the AI investment, said Michael Donovan, senior research analyst at Compass Point.<\/p>\n Most publicly\u00a0traded bitcoin miners\u00a0are increasingly valued by investors\u00a0as owners of digital infrastructure rather than merely producers of bitcoin, given their power capacity, data\u00a0center assets and\u00a0energy contracts. <\/p>\n As a\u00a0result, even pure-play bitcoin miners\u00a0like\u00a0Mara Holdings\u00a0and\u00a0Riot Platforms\u00a0can sell off\u00a0alongside AI-exposed\u00a0miners. These names often trade\u00a0together, through thematic\u00a0baskets, sector\u00a0ETFs and algorithmic\u00a0positioning that creates\u00a0broad moves across\u00a0the whole mining\u00a0sector.<\/p>\n “Some investors are questioning whether credit appetite for these projects is approaching its limits and which developers can fund their pipelines without meaningful dilution, expensive debt or additional support from customers and strategic partners,” Donovan added. “That may create a near-term overhang for the group, even though we continue to view the base compute infrastructure segment of AI as attractive and structurally supply-constrained.”<\/p>\n Bitcoin<\/a> itself was little changed, standing below the $65,000 level. Ether<\/a> was higher by more than 1% at about $1,900.<\/p>\n