From a 2600% surge to an 86% evaporation, the hottest trades in the cryptocurrency circle are facing a collapse.

At the beginning of the year, it was seen as one of the best trades in the stock market, but in just a few short months, it has turned into one of the worst investments. Many listed companies thought they had found a perpetual money-making machine: using company cash to buy Bitcoin or other digital tokens would cause the stock price to soar, sometimes even exceeding the value of the purchased tokens. This strategy was pioneered by Michael Saylor, who transformed his company Strategy Inc. into a publicly listed Bitcoin holding platform. In the first half of 2025, over a hundred companies following in Saylor's footsteps benefited from this trend. These companies became known as "digital asset treasuries," becoming one of the hottest trends in the public market, attracting the likes of Peter Thiel and the Trump family as their stock prices soared. SharpLink Gaming Inc. experienced a rapid increase of over 2600% in just a few days after announcing its transformation to abandon its original gambling business and use the proceeds to buy a large amount of Ethereum tokens, with one of its directors being a co-founder of Ethereum. However, the idea that tokens held by listed companies should automatically appreciate has always been hard to justify. This derailing train started off slowly but then accelerated out of control. In the case of SharpLink, its stock price has plummeted by 86% from its peak, causing the company's overall market value to fall below the value of the digital tokens it holds. The current stock price of the company is only equivalent to 0.9 times the value of its Ethereum holdings. At least it has avoided the fate of Greenlane Holdings, which still holds BERA crypto tokens worth about $48 million, even though its stock price has plummeted by over 99% this year. B. Riley Securities analyst Fedor Shabalin pointed out in an interview, "Investors have realized that holding these assets brings in far less profit than holding cash, so they are selling off." According to compiled data, the median stock price of US and Canadian listed companies that have converted to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAT) this year has fallen by 43%. In contrast, Bitcoin has only fallen by about 6% since the beginning of the year.