- Crypto market tops $4 trillion as key bills clear Congress and lift sentiment.
- Coinbase, Circle, and Strategy stocks rally in pre-market trading.
- Analysts and critics diverge on how sustainable the stock surge is.
The floodgates are opening.
Crypto’s total market value vaulted past $4 trillion for the first time on Friday, fuelled by landmark pro-crypto legislation clearing the US House of Representatives and reports that President Donald Trump plans to permit Americans to hold crypto directly in their 401(k) retirement plans.
The rally is now spilling into stocks tied to the sector. Coinbase shares jumped to new highs alongside gains for Strategy and Circle.
“The ‘all at once’ phase is beginning,” Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer posted on X.
As capital rotates back into risk-on assets, investors appear to be betting that equities exposed to digital assets may be next up to benefit from crypto’s breakout.
Coinbase
Coinbase is trading at $418 in pre-market Friday, brushing up against its record high set during its IPO day in 2021.
The move extends a blistering rally that made Coinbase the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 Index for June.
Shares of the US crypto exchange have rallied more than 80% since hitting a local low of $140 in early April.
The stock’s ascent has tracked closely with the broader crypto rally, but analysts argue Wall Street still underappreciates Coinbase’s role as core infrastructure.
In a recent note, Bernstein called it the “most misunderstood” name in crypto and set a $510 price target, citing its dominance in ETF custody and institutional flows.
CEO Brian Armstrong recently highlighted that eight of the ten largest public firms holding Bitcoin use Coinbase as their custodian, and 81% of crypto ETF assets in the US are custodied on the platform.
Circle
Circle is trading for $242 in pre-market Friday, still shy of its near-$300 record set the week of its June IPO.
The stock has surged more than 680% since debuting at $31 in June, making it one of the most explosive post-IPO performances and a closely watched proxy for stablecoin adoption.
Analysts at Bernstein have called Circle a “must-hold,” citing its lead as the first publicly traded stablecoin issuer and early positioning to benefit from regulatory clarity.
That clarity is now materialising: the Genius Act, a landmark US stablecoin bill, has passed both chambers of Congress and is expected to be signed into law by President Trump on Friday.
Circle is also pursuing a national trust bank charter, which would give it direct access to the US financial system and allow it to hold its USDC stablecoin reserves in-house.
Strategy
Strategy traded at $452 in pre-market Friday, still below its all-time high of $502 set the day Trump won the 2024 election.
The company’s market cap has ballooned to nearly $127 billion — up from just $25 billion a year ago — largely on the back of Chairman Michael Saylor’s aggressive Bitcoin accumulation strategy.
That model has turned Strategy into the definitive corporate Bitcoin proxy, with the stock now trading at a steep premium to its underlying holdings.
Saylor’s use of preferred shares to fund recent purchases has drawn comparisons to 2021-era financial engineering, and not all of them are flattering.
Veteran short-seller Jim Chanos likened the current Bitcoin treasury boom to the SPAC craze, warning of a growing number of “me-too” firms issuing equity to chase crypto returns.
“We are seeing SPAC-like 2021 numbers in the Bitcoin treasury market right now,” Chanos said on a podcast this week.
Kyle Baird is DL News’ Weekend Editor. Got a tip? Email at kbaird@dlnews.com.
