Coinbase, Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings, and Strategy stock prices jumped between 5% and 13% on Tuesday, while Bitcoin rose just 0.3% over the same 24-hour period. The four stocks recovered part of a two-day decline that had cut them by 8% to 14%.
Three factors converged on Tuesday. The stocks were rebounding from their two-day sell-off. The Nasdaq Composite climbed about 1% after losing 3.9% over the previous two sessions. Coinbase received company-specific news when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission cleared equity perpetual futures, contracts that never expire and track single US stocks. Coinbase's derivatives arm had filed to list them.
Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin miner, posted the largest gain at 13.3%. Coinbase rose 8.6%, MARA gained 7.6%, and Strategy climbed 5.4% shortly before 11 a.m. ET.
Short sellers may have played a role. Short interest in MARA reached 111.9 million shares in mid-October, up from 100.8 million two weeks earlier. Riot's short position rose to 53.6 million shares over the same period. Late-October figures remain unpublished, so short covering's role stays unconfirmed.
Barclays cut its Coinbase price target to $120 last week after October trading fees reached about $165 million. Riot reports third-quarter earnings before Wednesday's open. Analysts expect a loss of $0.32 a share on about $159.7 million in revenue.