Bitcoin Giant Strategy and Coinbase Lead Crypto Stock Slump

Shares in leading publicly traded crypto companies and digital asset treasuries like Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN) dropped after the opening bell on Wednesday before rebounding to 1.95% and 0.5% gains, respectively. 

But over the last month the pair have experienced extended losses, falling nearly 20% and 27% respectively. They’re underperforming crypto majors like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have respectively fallen 3.7% and gained 13.4% over that timeframe. For Strategy, it marks the lowest shares have traded since April. 

While the drops coincide with a broader crypto market selloff, potentially due to concerns over inflation and other macroeconomic data, crypto-related equities are lagging behind broader indices like the Dow Jones and S&P 500. Both are up about 1% on the month. 

“Just like crypto assets, crypto equities can be volatile. Add onto that the broader uncertainty investors are navigating around where tariffs, interest rates, and other macroeconomic factors are headed, and it’s a clear recipe for even more volatility,” Bitwise Head of Research Ryan Rasmussen told Decrypt.

“I’d add that crypto equities typically have a high beta to major crypto assets like Bitcoin, so it’s no surprise that they’ve underperformed amid the Bitcoin pullback,” he added. “Digital asset treasury companies even more so, given their business is inherently tied to the value of the underlying crypto assets they invest in.”

By high beta, Rasmussen means that crypto equities, particularly those tied to digital asset treasuries, typically carry a higher volatility when compared to crypto majors

It’s not just crypto’s most established equities that have suffered some recent underperformance. 

Robinhood (HOOD) briefly fell below $100 before rebounding to $104.53 on Wednesday. The mobile brokerage turned wide-ranging trading app is now down more than 11% from its recent all-time high of $117.70. 

Ethereum-focused treasury firms BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink Gaming have bucked the trend by rising on Wednesday, but both are down more than 10% across the last five trading days. 

A trio of recent crypto IPOs are also down over the last 5 trading days, led by Bullish (BLSH) falling 35% and Circle (CRCL) and eToro (ETOR) dropping 7.5% and 4.8%, respectively. 

Bullish, the most recent of the bunch, quickly jumped to more than 3x its IPO price of $37 when shares hit the market last week. But it has now pulled back nearly 50% in just a few days of trading, mounting significant losses for any late entrants on IPO day. 

But Rasmussen said he expects the crypto IPOs to find their footing as the market gap that existed since Coinbase’s IPO led to “considerable pent-up demand for crypto companies.”

“Investors typically get excited about new entrants to the market, and crypto equities are no different,” he told Decrypt, adding that despite the recent downturn, yearly performance points to the fact that investors aren’t ignoring established crypto equities. 

“Some of these crypto companies—like Coinbase—have proven their resilience, battle-tested in the last crypto winter,” said Rasmussen. “That’s a valuable and important factor for many investors wary of crypto’s potential for boom and bust cycles.”