In brief
- Investment bank Benchmark on Thursday raised the price target for Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer Canaan.
- The company’s stock is up this week.
- Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer says the firm’s stock now is a good buy.
Investment bank Benchmark raised Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Canaan’s price target to $4, citing the firm’s recent compliance notification from Nasdaq Stock Market and demand for the company’s rigs.
The Nasdaq last week informed Canaan that it had reached the minimum bid price of $1 per share so would not be at risk of being delisted. Since October, the company’s stock has traded above that level.
Equity research analyst Mark Palmer also said that Canaan’s Avalon line of Bitcoin mining rigs was gaining popularity.
“The company has steadily gained traction with these machines, appealing to miners seeking improved efficiency, reliability, and cost competitiveness,” he wrote.
He added: “We also believe yesterday’s broad selloff in crypto-related shares represents an attractive opportunity for investors to gain exposure to the company’s accelerating turnaround story through its very inexpensive stock, which trades at just 0.8x FY27E EV/sales.”
Palmer further added that the company’s strong balance sheet of 1,582 Bitcoins and 2,830 Ethereum—a combined total of over $186 million—was a “record,” and another reason for the price target.
Benchmark previously had given the Singapore-based company a price target of $2 per share.
Canaan’s stock traded 5.6% higher on Thursday; reaching $4 per share would mean it would have to jump about 118% from its current price of $1.80. Canaan’s share price has fallen nearly 19% year-to-date.
Miners, who earn Bitcoin for verifying transactions on the blockchain, have had to address rising costs and reduced rewards. Last year’s halving cut the amount of BTC miners could earn from 6.25 to 3.125. In this more challenging landscape, a number of miners have begun focusing more on high performance computing that is integral to AI.
Investors have viewed this trend positively. Google last month announced it was backstopping a deal between AI compute company Fluidstack and Bitcoin miner Cipher, giving Google the right to buy a 5.4% stake in Cipher.
Earlier this month, Canaan announced that it had landed its largest order in three years: more than 50,000 Avalon A15 Pro Bitcoin mining machines from an unnamed U.S. customer. The computers represent Canaan’s latest-gen mining hardware, designed to offer what the company described as industry-leading efficiency and reliability—critical factors as power costs increasingly determine mining profitability.
Bitcoin was recently trading at about $110,340, up 1.7% over the past 24 hours, although BTC has fallen more than 8% over the past month.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/345720/benchmark-boosts-bitcoin-maker-canaans-stock-target-turnaround
