Riot, MARA, CleanSpark Drop as Strategy Sells Bitcoin at a Loss

Bitcoin surged above $81,000 on Saturday as a wave of short liquidations and renewed spot demand helped the cryptocurrency rebound from losses triggered by higher interest rates and a setback for U.S. crypto legislation. Bitcoin climbed as high as $81,702 on Sept. 18 after trading near $76,400 a day earlier, marking its first move above $80,000 since Sept. 7, and was trading at $81,309.4 as of 22:50 ET, up 5.62% for the day. The rebound followed a difficult week in which the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points and the Bank of Japan followed with a quarter-point increase to 1.25%, its highest policy rate in 31 years, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $159 million of inflows on Sept. 17. A sharp short squeeze then accelerated Friday's rally, with roughly $192 million of leveraged crypto positions liquidated within one hour, including more than $183 million in shorts, of which Bitcoin shorts accounted for about $119 million. Regulatory uncertainty remains in focus after the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act this week, though the CFTC has submitted a separate crypto market proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget and the SEC introduced an innovation exemption giving qualifying platforms a five-year route to offer onchain trading in certain tokenized stocks without registering as securities exchanges.

CleanSpark said on Friday it priced $2.276B of 7.875% senior secured notes due 2031 at 98.5% of the principal amount. The offering is expected to close on September 25. Net proceeds will fund the remaining buildout costs of the Sandersville facility, reimburse certain prior equity contributions, and fund debt service reserves. The notes will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed by CSRE Properties Sandersville, a wholly owned subsidiary of the issuer, and the company will provide a completion guarantee and fund any shortfall needed to complete the Sandersville facility. Shares rose 8.39%.