Hardly for the first time in these waning days of 2024, cryptocurrency-related stocks were having quite a good day on the market Thursday -- although there were certain glaring exceptions. Lingering optimism about a crypto-friendly presidential administration preparing for work helped bolster their prices. It also didn't hurt that news broke of a top regulator considered hostile to the sector stepping down from his post.

Two quite different crypto-dependent securities both closed the day up nicely, mining business Mara Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) with a nearly 7% gain and exchange-traded fund iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (NASDAQ: ETHA) with a 9% rise. Going in quite the opposite direction was the recently high-flying Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) investment vehicle MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), but there was a specific reason for its retreat.

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Stocks that aren't MicroStrategy continued to ride the sustained and powerful demand for Bitcoin, by far the leading and most influential crypto. During the day, Bitcoin notched yet another all-time high -- is this even surprising anymore? -- by trading slightly over $99,000 at one point. That magic $100,000 level is well within sight, and we shouldn't be surprised to see the coin hit that level soon, perhaps very soon.

Ethereum is a different animal, to be sure, as a coin with significantly more utility than Bitcoin. Still, it's been a perennial runner-up and as such generally marches in step with Bitcoin, too. In late-afternoon trading, Ethereum was coasting 8% higher, hence the more or less similar rise of iShares Ethereum Trust ETF.

Getting down to specific company developments, Mara Holdings announced -- no doubt joyfully -- that an already-upsize convertible senior notes issue had been successfully floated. The company is reaping net proceeds of $980 million from the $1 billion private placement. That amount includes the full $150 million option offered to, and exercised by, the notes' initial investors.

This demonstrates that demand was powerful for the well-timed issue. As an added bonus, the notes have an interest rate of 0%, which is quite advantageous for Mara Holdings.

Interestingly, MicroStrategy is also issuing a pack of convertible senior notes. The difference is, that after the company's stock flew as much as 14% higher early Thursday, it was the topic of a short-seller's critical research note. That short-seller, Citron Research, described the formerly rallying crypto-stock's price as "overheated" in an official Twitter post.