If you are interested in trading the bitcoin hysteria there are not many ways to do so. Other cyptocurrencies are not well correlated with bitcoin and the few plays that exist in the equites market tend to be more blockchain-related than pure bitcoin. Even bitcoin itself has wildly different quotes on the various exchanges that trade it.
The purest bitcoin play in the equities market is Bitcoin Investment (GBTC) . It is traded OTC as a closed-end fund that may sell at a substantial premium to the actual bitcoin quote. Citron just announced that it is shorting bitcoin using this vehicle but good luck trying to borrow shares to short.
The few stocks that are related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain are not seeing action that is at related to bitcoin. There is some movement in names such as Overstock (OSTK) , U.S. Growth (GROW) and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) but nothing like what is going on in bitcoin.
We seldom have an opportunity to watch a bubble in real time, so bitcoin is extremely fascinating. It is great for the business media and it likely is having some influence on the entire market. When there is something traded with the aggressiveness of bitcoin it helps to minimize the perception of risk. There are some folks making big money trading this very risky currency so why should anyone worry about trading equities that actually have valuations that can be calculated?
Bitcoin promotes a speculative mood and that helps keep a big net under the market. At some point that works in reverse. When bitcoin crashes, as it certainly will at some point, that will likely dampen the mood in the equities market to some degree.
Right now, the indices are holding up fairly well. A couple of buy programs have tripped up the bears but the momentum out there isn't as strong as we have seen in prior bounces. Bitcoin is supportive of high risk speculation and that is keeping traders and algorithms bullish.
