Coinbase (COIN) and MicroStrategy (MSTR) – Get Report shares rose on Monday as the two major Bitcoin players benefited from the digital currency’s 50% surge over the past six months.
Bitcoin recently traded at $50,267, up 3%; Coinbase at $265.85, up 3%; and MicroStrategy at $750.02, up 5%.
Coinbase is the largest U.S. digital asset exchange. Chief Executive Bruce Armstrong said last week that it’s putting its own money into cryptocurrency.
“We recently received board approval to purchase over $500 million of crypto on our balance sheet to add to our existing holdings,” Armstrong tweeted.
“And we’ll be investing 10% of all profit going forward in crypto. I expect this percentage to keep growing over time as the crypto economy matures.”
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Further, “Hopefully over time we can operate more of our business in crypto,” he said. “Today it is still a mix.”
Earlier this month, Coinbase reported second-quarter results that creamed estimates.
Net income registered $1.6 billion, or $6.42 a share, up from $32 million a year earlier. There’s no year-earlier per-share figure because Coinbase went public only this April. Analysts forecast profit of $2.66 a share for the latest quarter.
As for MicroStrategy, a data analytics company betting big on Bitcoin, it held about 105,085 bitcoins as of June 30. They would now be valued at $5.25 billion, nearly twice the $2.74 billion it said it paid for the stash.
Last month, Capital Group, an investment management firm, said it had taken a 12% stake in MicroStrategy.
Capital owned 953,242 of MicroStrategy’s 7,782,568 shares outstanding at June 30.