Dozens of publicly traded companies incorporate blockchain tech into their operations, offer blockchain-related services to customers, or play a role in the crypto industry. Some are exclusively focused on blockchain innovation and/or cryptocurrencies, while others are using blockchain-related products and services to complement an existing successful business.
With that in mind, here’s a list of seven excellent stocks you may want to consider if you want to invest in blockchain technology.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the leading manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPUs), which are essential components in such important technological arenas as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and gaming. In addition, GPUs are key hardware components of cryptocurrency mining. In a nutshell, “miners” use specialized GPUs to process transactions on the blockchain and are rewarded with newly minted digital coins. Rising cryptocurrency prices have created a renewed interest in mining — a recent report showed that NVIDIA sold $175 worth of its GeForce RXT 30 GPUs to Ethereum miners in the most recent quarter alone.
CME Group
CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) is the world’s largest futures and options exchange, offering derivative securities for stocks, indexes, foreign exchange, and more. It also is the only exchange that creates a market for bitcoin futures contracts. With bitcoin interest on the rise in recent quarters and the potential for the price of bitcoin to reach new all-time highs, CME Group stands to see revenue rise, as the company gets a small fee for every transaction made on its exchanges. And if cryptocurrency interest continues to rise, other futures products could eventually be offered on the exchange as well.
Square
Financial technology (fintech) company Square (NYSE:SQ) has two main components to its business — its payment-processing ecosystem for small businesses and its Cash App person-to-person payment platform. It also has operations in business lending, a stock trading platform, and several other adjacent businesses, and recently introduced Square Online Store, which helps merchants build out e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities.
Square is a blockchain stock in two main ways. Most obviously, Cash App allows users to buy and sell bitcoin quickly and easily, and with more than $1.6 billion in bitcoin purchased in the third quarter of 2020 alone, this is a significant part of the company’s business. Also, Square has its own team of bitcoin developers, known as Square Crypto, that has several exciting projects of its own.
IBM
Although IBM‘s (NYSE:IBM) performance in recent years hasn’t been stellar, the company has made some big moves recently to try to jump-start growth. For example, its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat gives it lots of cross-selling opportunities with its enterprise clients. On the blockchain side of things, IBM Blockchain has already provided transformative solutions for clients such as Kroger (NYSE:KR), True Tickets (a ticket authentication company), and many others, and it could have a major growth runway if blockchain-based solutions gain more traction in the years to come. As one potential example, IBM Blockchain is focusing on helping customers build more dependable supply chains in light of the COVID-19 interruptions.
Mastercard
Payment processing giant Mastercard (NYSE:MA) has grown tremendously for several years as the trend toward a cashless economy has led to increasing volumes of debit and credit card transactions. Blockchain technology has the potential to transform the cashless payment space, particularly when it comes to cross-border money transfers, which have historically been slow and costly. Mastercard announced a partnership with blockchain technology company R3 to develop a new cross-border payment system, which could ultimately give the company a major competitive advantage in the industry by eliminating the major pain points of sending money internationally. And Mastercard recently accelerated its Crypto Card partner program, which makes it easier for partners to bring cryptocurrency payment cards to market.
