Last year, Riot Blockchain stock experienced an astronomical rally. In the past twelve months, RIOT shares are approximately 1457.25% up. In the past three months, it rallied by 514.00%.
The California pension fund, the US largest pension fund with a $441 billion market value, has increased the number of Riot Blockchain Inc (NYSE: RIOT) shares in its portfolio. During Q4 2020, the fund bought more RIOT shares than ever. In the third quarter of 2020, California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) held 16,907 RIOT shares worth about $49,000. The fund had been holding this amount since acquiring them back in 2017. In Q4 2020, the California pension fund had already 113,034 shares in RIOT worth over $1.9 million.About Riot BlockchainRiot Blockchain is one of the largest US-based publicly-traded Bitcoin (BTC) miners in North America. The company focuses on supporting the bitcoin ecosystem through proof-of-work mining. With headquarters in Castle Rock, Colorado, Riot Blockchain has a Bitcoin mining facility at Coinmint LLP’s Massena, New York. The center houses its currently deployed hardware fleet consisting of 6,040 next-generation Bitmain Antminers.Notably, the company uses S19 Pro miners, which are the latest mining hardware that is capable of competing with increased hash rate and mining difficulty. By June 2021, Riot Blockchain anticipates having a total of 22,640 miners.Besides, Riot Blockchain invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based businesses with the intent of growing out the underlying technologies and platforms. Its portfolio includes unique projects like CoinSquare (leading Canadian cryptocurrency exchange), escrow for wholesale telecom carriers Tesspay, and cryptocurrency accounting and auditing firm Verady.Last year, Riot Blockchain stock experienced an astronomical rally. In the past twelve months, RIOT shares are approximately 1457.25% up, according to MarketWatch. Year-to-date, RIOT stock is 26.49% up. In the past three months, it rallied by 514.00%. The market cap of Riot Blockchain totals $1.35 billion.Yesterday, RIOT shares closed 7.56% up, at $21.49. After hours, they added another 3.30% to $22.20.Bitcoin Q4 RallyIn the last months of 2020, Bitcoin was soaring, flying to new record highs. But while the 2017 bitcoin rally was largely driven by retail frenzy, the 2020 rally was driven mainly by institutions. Firstly, the number of addresses that hold large balances has significantly increased. In particular, the number of addresses with over 1000 BTC, known as “whales,” was over 30% higher in December 2020 than at the end of 2017. Secondly, in 2020, such big names as PayPal, Square, MicroStrategy, and a host of others bought Bitcoin as a viable means of investment to protect them against inflation.This played a pivotal role in the bull run Bitcoin witnessed towards the end of 2020 and into the early period of 2021. For the last quarter of last year, Bitcoin was 174% up. As of now, BTC is trading at $36,607 per coin. Its market cap is $681.6 billion.
