Public Keys: Circle Keeps Surging, GameStop’s Bitcoin ‘Black Box’, Ethereum Treasury Tanks

Public Keys is a weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies.

This week: Circle’s stock surged again to end the week while GameStop shares swoon after another bond offering—but SharpLink Gaming’s fall takes the cake.

Circle stays hot

The euphoria started to ebb, but the glossy announcements kept coming—and CRCL is surging again.

After last week’s massive launch, USDC issuer Circle has seen its stock reach new highs and then start to settle over the course of the week as the stablecoin was added to Sam Altman’s World Chain.

By late Thursday, it looked as though CRCL might continue cooling and fall below the $100 mark for the first time this week. Instead, the stock took off like a rocket again Friday, surging 25% on the day to finish at $133.56—just a few dollars shy of its all-time high mark from Monday.

Friday’s surge happened despite flaring tensions in the Middle East weighing on many assets, except for oil and gold, of course. In after-hours trading, CRCL has ticked even closer to its peak price.

The Friday surge came following a Wall Street Journal report claiming that retail giants Amazon and Walmart are among those considering launching their own stablecoins, pending passage of the GENIUS Act stablecoin bill. Senator Elizabeth Warren and consumer groups denounced the retailers’ reported plans Friday afternoon.

If Circle’s public offering really was a “moon landing moment” for stablecoins, then other companies and projects are seizing the opportunity to plan a flag next to the firm.

Among the entities that want you to know they’re using USDC: Shopify rolled out USDC stablecoin payments on Base; RippleX welcomed USDC to XRP Ledger, a move “accelerating DeFi and institutional adoption;” and Brazilian fintech Matera said it would start using the stablecoins to enable “multi-currency” operations among traditional banks, per Bloomberg.

It’s safe to say that Circle’s public offering has made crypto cool again—at least from the perspective of companies and projects looking for some positive press.

GameStop buying Bitcoin?

Does GameStop need its own Michael Saylor?

With each move that top Bitcoin-buyer Strategy makes, co-founder and Executive Chairman Saylor is often front and center, unpacking the firm’s prospects on camera as best he can—even if the veteran short sellers like Jim Chanos say that amounts to “complete financial gibberish.”

When GameStop said this week that it would offer $1.75 billion worth of convertible senior notes (since upsized to $2.25 billion) to investors, following its previous $1.5 billion raise, GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen wasn’t out there explaining what the brick-and-mortar video game retailer would do with its second mountain of cash. Instead, he highlighted a shitpost on X poking fun at himself.

The company’s stock price dropped 22% to $22.12 following the announcement, showing a loss compared to when GameStop approved Bitcoin as a treasury asset in late March. Its shares traded around $25.40 then. On Friday, shares finished essentially flat at $22.14, per Yahoo Finance.

Are GameStop investors looking for an outspoken advocate to explain why they should be excited about the firm’s recent Bitcoin pivot?

“What I think is very important for a Bitcoin treasury company is transparency and authenticity, and so far, they’ve been a black box,” Strive Asset Management CEO Matt Cole told Decrypt in a recent interview.

Although GameStop purchased 4,710 Bitcoin last month, the company won’t telegraph any future purchases, Cohen explained during his five-minute showing at a Bitcoin conference last month. The company’s announcement this week said cash raised could go toward acquisitions, operating costs, and investments (like Bitcoin).

But GameStop has owned other digital assets, too—and sold them.

SharpLink swings

Another day, another example of wild speculation about things that are just way too complex for the average person to understand on Crypto Twitter (aka X).

On Thursday, an SEC filing from SharpLink Gaming, a newly minted Ethereum treasury firm, sparked speculation that investors who had participated in a $425 million private placement not long ago had elected to sell off their shares.

The company’s stock price plummeted more than 70% on the filing’s back.

Following the speculation and plunge, Ethereum co-founder, Consensys CEO, and SharpLink board chair Joe Lubin said on X that the filing was “standard” for TradFi companies and being misrepresented. (Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 investors in an editorially independent Decrypt.)

Still, why did the stock chart look like a celebrity meme coin, swinging upward and then cratering rapidly?

“There’s a period of time between [the] announcement to when everything is ready to go, where the float is tiny and everyone buys it, and it basically turns into a meme stonk,” Taproot Wizards co-founder Udi Wertheimer said on X about crypto treasury company pivots. “That’s resolved once all the filings [are] done. […] It doesn’t mean anyone ‘rugged.’”

The price swing, and Crypto Twitter’s evolving assessment of what actually happened, appeared to overshadow an announcement of Friday that SharpLink had built a $462 million war chest of Ethereum following a recent raise and issuing some stock. Already, 95% of those funds have been deployed on-chain, earning yield through staking, the company added.

SharpLink’s stock didn’t improve Friday, however, remaining down nearly 72% since Thursday’s close at $9.21 per share.

Other keys

• Solana ETF issuers add staking: A flurry of hopeful Solana ETF issuers updated their SEC filings late Friday to add plans to stake their assets, earning yield that could make them more attractive investments. Ethereum ETF issuers had to remove such language from their filings before last summer’s approvals, but this is a new SEC under President Trump—one much friendlier to the crypto industry.
• Obama advisor backs a new blue: Coinbase welcomed David Plouffe, who devised former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and served as an adviser to Kamala Harris, to its Global Advisory Council. His addition comes amid growing bipartisan support for crypto legislation on Capitol Hill that has been stifled, among some Democrats recently, by the prevalence of crypto ventures backed by President Donald Trump.
• Crypto David vs. Goliath consulting firm: Ethereum token platform Zora sued Deloitte to stop the audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services firm from calling one of its products “Zora AI.” Deloitte launched the platform last March, but Zora has been a playing client of Deloitte since 2022.
• Bitcoin miners bounce back: Bitcoin miners were struggling earlier this year, but Bitdeer said this week that it minted 196 BTC in May, an 18% increase from April. Data from Farside Investors shows that four top Bitcoin miners—CleanSpark, MARA, Riot Platforms, and HIVE—minted more BTC in May than in April, as well.

Edited by Andrew Hayward