Crypto Stocks Outran Bitcoin on Friday. Hut 8 Is Up 139% Since Bitcoin’s Peak
Bitcoin rose about 6% on Friday, September 18. The crypto stocks that trade alongside it rose between 6.5% and 16.4%. Our evening recap called that roughly two to three times the coin, and noted the leverage works both ways. Nobody published the measurement. This piece is the measurement: what each route into Bitcoin exposure actually delivered, on Friday and across the past year.
The finding runs against how these stocks are usually described. Over the past year Bitcoin explains between 14% and 24% of the daily movement of Canada’s listed miners. Only the spot ETF reliably delivered Bitcoin’s return. And the two largest TSX-listed Bitcoin miners went in opposite directions: Hut 8 is up 139.34% since Bitcoin’s all-time high close, while Bitcoin in Canadian dollars is down 34.90% and HIVE Digital is down 38.51%.
As a snapshot rather than a close, Bitcoin was at $81,247.10 USD ($113,806.87 CAD) at 6:05am ET on September 19, up 0.43% over 24 hours. Ethereum was at $2,637.59 USD ($3,696.99 CAD), up 1.00%. Source: Yahoo Finance.
Friday, measured on a matched clock
Equities close at 4:00pm ET and Bitcoin never closes, so a crypto daily change quoted elsewhere runs on a different clock. To line them up we took BTC and ETH from Yahoo hourly bars at 16:00 ET on September 17 and 18. BTC-USD went from $76,498.54 to $81,096.19, up 6.01%, and BTC-CAD from $107,027.51 to $113,381.54, up 5.94%. ETH-USD went from $2,451.44 to $2,631.54, up 7.35%, and ETH-CAD from $3,429.21 to $3,679.00, up 7.28%.
| Name | Ticker | Sep 17 | Sep 18 | Change | Times the coin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose Bitcoin ETF | TSX: BTCC.B | $14.83 CAD | $15.80 CAD | +6.54% | 1.10x |
| Purpose spot Ethereum fund | TSX: ETHH.B | $11.44 CAD | $12.36 CAD | +8.04% | 1.10x |
| Bitcoin Treasury Corporation | TSXV: BTCT | $3.67 CAD | $3.92 CAD | +6.81% | 1.15x |
| Hut 8 | TSX: HUT | $127.31 CAD | $138.29 CAD | +8.62% | 1.45x |
| HIVE Digital | TSX: HIVE | $4.35 CAD | $4.79 CAD | +10.11% | 1.70x |
| DMG Blockchain | TSXV: DMGI | $0.515 CAD | $0.57 CAD | +10.68% | 1.80x |
| Galaxy Digital | Nasdaq: GLXY | $22.28 USD | $24.69 USD | +10.82% | 1.80x |
| Keel Infrastructure | Nasdaq: KEEL | $3.61 USD | $4.01 USD | +11.08% | 1.84x |
| Coinbase | Nasdaq: COIN | $173.97 USD | $194.25 USD | +11.66% | 1.94x |
| Strategy | Nasdaq: MSTR | $132.25 USD | $153.92 USD | +16.39% | 2.73x |
Each name is measured against the coin in its own currency, with Purpose’s spot Ethereum fund (TSX: ETHH.B) measured against Ethereum. Two to three times held for Strategy, at 2.73x. The Canadian names came in at 1.10x to 1.80x, so our recap’s range was fair for the US names and generous for the TSX ones.
Rebased to 100 at Bitcoin’s 2025-10-06 all-time high close, through 2026-09-18. Bitcoin ends at 65, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF at 64, Hut 8 at 239 and HIVE Digital at 61. Source: Yahoo Finance daily closes, calculations our own.
One Friday is not a relationship
To see whether Friday was leverage or coincidence, we regressed each name’s daily returns on Bitcoin’s over daily closes from 2025-09-02 to 2026-09-18, matching currencies: Canadian names against BTC-CAD, US names against BTC-USD, and ETHH.B against ETH-CAD.
R-squared is the number that matters. It is the share of a stock’s daily movement that the coin’s movement explains. At 87% the coin is nearly the whole story. At 14% it is a minor input.
| Name | Ticker | Beta | R-squared | Up-day beta | Down-day beta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose Bitcoin ETF | TSX: BTCC.B | 0.96 | 87% | 0.96 | 0.89 |
| Purpose spot Ethereum fund | TSX: ETHH.B | 0.92 | 83% | 0.78 | 0.94 |
| Strategy | Nasdaq: MSTR | 1.48 | 64% | 1.61 | 1.21 |
| Coinbase | Nasdaq: COIN | 1.24 | 56% | 1.36 | 1.03 |
| Galaxy Digital | Nasdaq: GLXY | 1.34 | 40% | 1.38 | 1.38 |
| Bitcoin Treasury Corporation | TSXV: BTCT | 0.99 | 32% | 1.14 | 0.91 |
| HIVE Digital | TSX: HIVE | 1.14 | 24% | 0.84 | 1.06 |
| Keel Infrastructure | Nasdaq: KEEL | 1.18 | 19% | 0.98 | 0.98 |
| DMG Blockchain | TSXV: DMGI | 0.98 | 15% | 0.75 | 0.82 |
| Hut 8 | TSX: HUT | 0.94 | 14% | 0.50 | 1.07 |
Share of each name’s daily return explained by Bitcoin’s, daily closes 2025-09-02 to 2026-09-18. Source: Yahoo Finance, regressions our own.
If only 14% of Hut 8’s daily movement is Bitcoin, the next question is what the other 86% is. It is everything that prices any operating business: earnings, contracts, financing and the multiple the market puts on them, which our guide to what moves a stock price takes one at a time.
Hut 8’s up-day beta is 0.50 and its down-day beta is 1.07, so across the last year it captured half of Bitcoin’s up days and all of its down days. That is the opposite of how a leveraged Bitcoin bet is sold, and it sits awkwardly beside Friday’s 1.45x. Strategy is the only name where leveraged Bitcoin is roughly true on the daily data, at a beta of 1.48 with 64% explained.
What each route delivered through the cycle
Bitcoin’s all-time high close was 2025-10-06 and its low close was 2026-06-30. Measured from the closes on or before those dates through 2026-09-18, Bitcoin in USD fell 53.06%, rebounded 38.15% and is down 35.15%. In CAD: -52.18%, +36.12% and -34.90%. Ethereum in CAD fell 65.89%, rebounded 63.92% and is down 44.08%.
| Name | Ticker | Peak to trough | Trough to Sep 18 | Total since peak | Own worst drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose Bitcoin ETF | TSX: BTCC.B | -52.89% | +36.62% | -35.64% | -52.89% |
| Purpose spot Ethereum fund | TSX: ETHH.B | -66.43% | +64.80% | -44.67% | -66.92% |
| Hut 8 | TSX: HUT | +183.52% | -15.58% | +139.34% | -41.35% |
| Keel Infrastructure | Nasdaq: KEEL | +65.90% | -30.14% | +15.90% | -73.65% |
| DMG Blockchain | TSXV: DMGI | +3.45% | -5.00% | -1.72% | -65.32% |
| Galaxy Digital | Nasdaq: GLXY | -29.61% | -9.69% | -36.43% | -60.71% |
| HIVE Digital | TSX: HIVE | -33.50% | -7.53% | -38.51% | -75.23% |
| Coinbase | Nasdaq: COIN | -62.13% | +32.88% | -49.69% | -63.57% |
| Bitcoin Treasury Corporation | TSXV: BTCT | -67.33% | +40.00% | -54.26% | -67.33% |
| Strategy | Nasdaq: MSTR | -75.83% | +77.06% | -57.21% | -77.12% |
Strategy is the caveat on every beta number here. Its measured down-day beta was 1.21, yet it fell 75.83% into the trough against Bitcoin’s 53.06%, because it also fell on days Bitcoin rose. Dispersion among the miners is the rest of the story. Same sector, same twelve months: Hut 8 up 139.34%, HIVE Digital down 38.51%. Nothing about the phrase “Bitcoin exposure” gets you from one to the other.
Why Hut 8 came unstuck from the coin
The answer is in the company’s own filing. Hut 8 Corp.’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30 2026, filed 2026-08-04, reports revenue of $74.932 million USD against $41.299 million a year earlier: Power $1.176 million, Digital Infrastructure $1.285 million, Compute $72.471 million. Compute includes Bitcoin mining, through majority-owned subsidiary American Bitcoin, so this is not a company that stopped mining.
In the filing’s own account the increase was “primarily driven by higher ASIC Compute revenue, reflecting an increase in Bitcoin mined from approximately 308 to approximately 935, partially offset by a decrease in average revenue per Bitcoin mined from approximately $98,320 to approximately $71,905.” On our arithmetic the realised price per coin mined fell 26.87%, absorbed by roughly triple the coins.
What the market appears to be pricing is the contracted data centre book. The same filing describes the River Bend (Louisiana) and Beacon Point (Texas) leases taking contracted critical IT capacity to 704 MW, approximately 1 GW of utility capacity, and says they “represent approximately $19.6 billion of aggregate base contract value and $1.31 billion of expected average annual NOI, with potential aggregate contract value of approximately $50.2 billion if all renewal options are exercised.” Behind them sit $3.25 billion of River Bend Notes and $4.25 billion of Beacon Point Notes due 2042 at 6.129%.
A lease book with $19.6 billion of base contract value does not reprice when Bitcoin moves. That is why only 14% of the stock’s daily movement tracks the coin, and why it rose 139.34% in a year the coin fell 34.90% in Canadian dollars. The risk moves rather than disappears: $7.5 billion of notes sit ahead of the common shares, and the exposure now runs to construction timelines and counterparties. A business like that has to be priced as a business, which is the lens behind our list of Canadian crypto stocks ranked on Bitcoin per share.
The miner that stopped mining, and rallied anyway
Keel Infrastructure Corp. (Nasdaq: KEEL) is the former Bitfarms Ltd., renamed on its redomiciliation from Canada to the United States completed 2026-04-01. Its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30 2026, filed 2026-08-10, states:
“Effective June 29, 2026, the Company ceased its Bitcoin Mining operations in the United States as part of its strategic transition to HPC and AI infrastructure development.”
The same filing says the Paraguay operations “concluded following the sale of our final site there on April 21, 2026”, and that the accelerated cessation “is driven by HPC and AI infrastructure construction timelines as well as macro factors affecting the profitability of Bitcoin Mining.”
Keel still rose 11.08% on Friday, more than Bitcoin, more than Hut 8 and more than the spot ETF. A company that no longer mines Bitcoin in the United States traded as a Bitcoin stock on a Bitcoin day. Friday sorted by label, not by exposure.
The route that tracked, and what it charges
The Purpose Bitcoin ETF did the job it exists to do. It fell 52.89% against Bitcoin’s 52.18% into the trough and rose 36.62% against 36.12% in the rebound, a shortfall of 0.74 percentage points since the peak, with no surprises in either direction.
That precision is bought. Purpose’s non-FX-hedged Bitcoin ETF units carry a management expense ratio of 1.29%, and the non-FX-hedged units of Purpose’s spot Ethereum fund (TSX: ETHH.B) carry 1.42%. That is a permanent drag and it is visible in the tracking figures. Purpose’s fund pages also state both funds are eligible for registered accounts such as TFSAs and RRSPs, a real advantage over holding coin on an exchange, though what it means for any individual return is a question for a tax professional. Fees are the whole game with fund products, and we compare them in our ranking of Canadian ETFs ranked on what reaches you.
The bear case on the fund route
Tracking Bitcoin faithfully means tracking it down. The fund delivered the entire 52.89% drawdown with no cushion and no other business underneath it, and that was its own worst drawdown of the period. Anyone holding from the October peak was down more than half by the end of June and is still down 35.64%. Faithful tracking is a feature only if the thing being tracked is what you wanted, and the 1.29% MER is charged in the drawdown too.
A low R-squared is not automatically a defect either. If what you want is a data centre developer, Hut 8’s 14% is the right number for a business that mostly is not Bitcoin, and that business is the reason the stock is where it is. The mistake is not owning a miner. It is owning a miner for Bitcoin and then being surprised when it captures half the up days and all the down days. These are three different bets, only one of them is a Bitcoin bet, and which one fits depends on what you were trying to buy.
The honest limits of this
This is one year of daily data and one Friday. R-squared measures co-movement, not causation: it says how closely two series moved together, not why, and nothing about what comes next. Betas are not fixed properties of a company either. They change when the business changes, and these businesses are changing fast. Hut 8’s 14% is the product of a pivot barely a year old, and Keel stopped mining in the United States three months ago. The same regression a year from now could return very different numbers, which is an argument for re-running it rather than trusting this one indefinitely.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Prices are Yahoo Finance. Bitcoin and Ethereum are quoted at 16:00 ET on September 17 and 18, 2026 from hourly bars so they line up with the 4:00pm ET equity close; crypto trades continuously, so these are snapshots, not closes. The September 19 price is a 6:05am ET snapshot. Betas, R-squared values and period returns are our own calculations on Yahoo daily closes from September 2, 2025 to September 18, 2026. Hut 8 and Keel Infrastructure figures and quotations come from each company’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, as filed with the SEC and linked in the article. Management expense ratios and registered-account eligibility come from Purpose Investments’ own fund pages.
