This week has been a rough one for the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As their prices drop, cryptocurrency-related companies are seeing the same effects. Bloomberg reports that across the board, publicly traded companies dealing with cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are all showing negative price movements for the week. Bitcoin itself has fallen 15%, so it makes sense that related corporations are falling as well.
Monex, owner of hacked cryptocurrency exchange CoinCheck, tumbled more than 2% this week. CoinCheck is a cryptocurrency exchange that was hacked for over $500 million worth of NEM this year, and claims to be processing $19M in trading activity over the past 24 hours. Unlike other exchanges, they only have one market: BTC/JPY. No altcoins, no alternative fiat currencies.
SBI Holdings, based in Tokyo, Japan, also posted a 2% loss. SBI is a financial services investment company that owns shares in LastRoots, CoolBitX, Templum, and other crypto-companies. SBI additionally owns a remittance company that uses Bitcoin to transact in Africa, and it’s also been rumored that they’re building a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange.
Two other notable price movements came from Vidente and Omnitel, who both are down 7% this week. Vidente owns shares in Bithumb, the cryptocurrency exchange, and Omnitel is a mobile tech company that owns a bitcoin remittance business as well.
Another fintech & blockchain company, Ideanomics Inc., plunged 49% in one day, thanks to poor earnings reports. This small cap Chinese company blames their earnings losses on increasing infrastructure costs and new executive team hires.
Although it’s not clear if Bitcoin’s sell-off triggered this slide in stocks, it can’t be ignored that the two are related. Bitcoin’s break of $6,000 is seen by many as a clear bearish indicator, and does not inspire confidence in bullishness returning soon. Soichiro Tsutsumi, a trader with eWarrant Japan Securities K.K. in Tokyo, explains:
The $6,000 mark, which had been serving as a floor for a long time, gave way — this feels like a bit of a dangerous sign…Companies most impacted by the price move would be the ones with business models reliant on a client pool, on concern that the number of client accounts won’t expand.
It should also be noted that long-time Bitcoin-supporter Overstock has taken quite the price hit this year, as well. Overstock, one of the first major retailers to accept Bitcoin, has a price history that almost mirrors that of Bitcoin. As big supporters of Bitcoin, Overstock is continuing to invest in growing Bitcoin despite any price movement. Their stock is down 79% since its top in December, as shown below.
