Riot Platforms Stock Edges Lower On Completing $525M Fund Raise To Buy Bitcoin: Retail Waiting For Rally

Riot Platforms edged down as much as 0.4% in premarket trade on Thursday, after a 6% surge in the previous session, after announcing the completion of its $525 million senior note offering to buy more Bitcoin. 

Riot is currently the third-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 11,425 BTC on its balance sheet valued at approximately $1.1 billion. 

The proceeds from the senior note offering will primarily fuel the Bitcoin miner’s expansion of its already substantial holdings. 

 The company last added 497 BTC to its reserves on Nov. 30.

Riot Platforms Sentiment and Message Volume on Dec 12 as of 7:05 a.m. ET | Source: Stocktwits

Retail sentiment around the stock remained muted in the ‘neutral’ zone, dipping from ‘bullish’ a day ago. However, chatter has increased to ‘high’ from ‘normal’. 

The sentiment, while upbeat about Riot’s long-term prospects, was weighed down by the stagnation in BItcoin’s price over the last 24 hours. Even though the world’s largest cryptocurrency has rebounded to over $100,000, retail investors feel it needs to go higher for Riot to reap the benefits. 

This development follows Riot’s primary competitor, MARA Holdings reporting that it hit a record hash rate of 50 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Tuesday. 

For comparison, Riot reported a hash rate of 29.4 EH/s in October and is only planning to hit 36 EH/s this year, and MARA’s 50 EH/s hash rate by the end of 2025. 

The faster the hash rate, the more computational power the company has to mine for Bitcoin, resulting in faster mining, making it a key metric to assess the future outlook for Bitcoin miners like MARA and Riot. 

MARA’s stock is up as much as 1% in pre-market trading, after booking gains of over 2% in the last session. 

Retail investors also feel that MARA’s is the better Bitcoin miner to bet on compared to others in the industry including Riot, according to an ongoing poll on Stocktwits. 

Stocktwits Poll on Bitcoin Mining Stocks on Dec 12 as of 7:00 a.m. ET | Source: Stocktwits

While MARA has managed to lock in gains of 1.4% so far this year, RIOT is down over 23% in the same period. 

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Read also: MARA Stock Climbs On Record-Breaking Mining Power, $1.1B Bitcoin Buy: Retail Displays Unwavering Faith