Citron Research gets short Riot Blockchain, says it's reached a 'full mania'

Bloomberg

Andrew Left

• Short seller Andrew Left's Citron Research has initiated a position against Riot Blockchain.
• Shares of the company have soared more than 375% since the company pivoted to blockchain from biotech in October.
• Riot Blockchain shares are shrugging off the news of Left's short position.

Shares of Riot Blockchain are shrugging off the news that short seller Andrew Left's company, Citron Research, has initiated a position against the company. They're trading up 33.5% near $38 apiece on Monday.

Riot Blockchain has soared about 375% since the company announced in early October that it was pivoting to focus on buying cryptocurrency and blockchain businesses. The company was previously named Bioptix and focused on making diagnostic machinery for the biotech industry.

"Full mania..," Citron's Twitter account said. "No reason to short any stocks now that even have business while the market has given us stocks like $RIOT. Starting short position here. The bar for finding good shorts has been lowered."

Riot Blockchain is just one of many companies that have seen a significant jump in market cap after announcing a pivot to the blockchain space. Over the past week, shares of LongFin Corp. soared as much as 2,400% after that company announced it had purchased Ziddu, a blockchain company specializing in business-to-business warehouse payments.

Getting in on the area has been a hot trend as of late as companies look to capitalize on the booming cryptocurrency space. This past weekend, CME Group launched bitcoin futures, sending the cryptocurrency to a record high near $20,000 a coin.

In total, the cryptocurrency universe has a market cap of more than $600 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com.