The diamond hand HODLers who held on long enough to see bitcoin (BTC-USD) come back to above the $30,000 mark were once more granted their heart’s desire. But is it possible that Bitcoin could ultimately make a play for its old highs? A new report from Barron’s suggests it’s wholly possible.
Crypto winter now seems to be over, and digital assets all along the continuum are on their way upward. Bitcoin is currently up about 80% on this year but has struggled mightily to break past $31,000 per coin. This led to K33 analyst Vetle Lund suggesting that there’s a bullish case ahead. Lund notes there is similar pricing action between what we saw in 2022 and what we saw in 2018. That was the last time Bitcoin turned downward out of a bull market, so it stands to reason that what we’ll see going into mid-2023 should follow what we saw following the downturn of 2018.
In addition, several stocks closely connected to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general also made recoveries. For instance, MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR)—whose stock is effectively tied to bitcoin due to the sheer quantity of bitcoin it holds—added just over 5% at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN), a leading cryptocurrency stock and exchange, was only up fractionally. Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT) added almost 4%, while Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) added a little over 2%. The big winner was Cleanspark (NASDAQ:CLSK), which added nearly 16%.
While Cleanspark was a big winner percentage-wise today, it’s also the favorite among Wall Street. Cleanspark stock is considered a Strong Buy by analyst consensus, and thanks to its average price target of $8.33, it offers an upside potential of 63.82%. Riot Platforms, considered a Strong Buy as well, is on the opposite end with an average price target of $11.63, giving it a downside risk of 13.34%.
