HIVE Blockchain Technologies (TSXV:HIVE) (OTCMKTS:PRELF) Is A Bitcoin Runner

Over the last six months, we have tried to draw our readers' attention to what we see as some of the most exciting publicly traded exposures to the bitcoin and cryptocurrency space.One of these is Pierre Enterprises Ltd. (OTCMKTS:PRELF) (TSXV:HIVE), which is due to be renamed Hive Blockchain (the name is actually already in place, but the ticker on the Google Finance platform is yet to catch up to the fact). PRELF Daily ChartWe highlighted it as one to watch back during mid-September, at which point the company was trading for around $1.20 a share. Management just announced a major development and the company is running up on the news, having gained close to 30% and currently trading for just shy of two dollars a share – a 66% appreciation on the price at which we highlighted the stock.So why do we like this one and what does the latest development mean for the company going forward?Many of the publicly traded companies in this space right now are relatively small and unheard of in the wider cryptocurrency ecosphere. Sure, they have presented ample opportunity to cling onto the coattails of bitcoin as it has risen in price but, operationally, many have done very little to progress in line with their respective share price appreciation.This one is different.Hive has been created by a company called Genesis Mining, which is one of the most well-known bitcoin mining companies in the space.The idea was to create what amounts to a publicly traded version of the parent company and to bolster this version with a fresh technology (called, unsurprisingly, Hive) that allows people who rent mining power and data center space off the company to track and monitor their hash power and allocate it accordingly depending on which currency is the most profitable to mine at any given time.So what did the latest news tell us?Well, the company just closed on a previously announced bought deal private placement that saw a total of 20 million shares issued at a price of CAD$1.50 for aggregate gross proceeds of $30 million. Concurrent to this bought deal, the company also carried out a non-brokered private placement of a little over 4.6 million shares at the same price, for aggregate proceeds of $7 million.In addition, Hive has also acquired a second data center (that adds onto the first) from its parent company, Genesis, for CAD$5 million and the issuance of 2 million shares of common stock.The result of this latter development is that the company's cryptocurrency mining capacity is expected to increase by over 70% with the addition of the second data center.To put all this in simple terms, this is now one of the only cryptocurrency exposures available on the public markets that is both very well-capitalized and that has taken large steps operationally to expand operations and to make itself more attractive to both investors and potential future customers.For us, this makes it one of the top stocks in this space right now.Sure, there are risks associated with an investment in this company at the moment. The cryptocurrency space is nascent at best and the price of bitcoin is still very much in control of the near-term price swings that we are seeing in these sorts of companies, operational advance or not. Bitcoin is up right now, but if it falls, chances are so will the market capitalization of Hive and its peers.Longer term, however, these sorts of volatility swings should be outweighed by an overarching upside revaluation and that is why we are highlighting Hive as being a potentially rewarding allocation at this stage.Check out our previous coverage of this one here. We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on HIVE, sign up below!Image courtesy of BTC Keychain via FlickrDisclosure: We have no position in HIVE and have not been compensated for this article.