30 US listed companies follow the trend of "micro-strategy effect": small and medium-sized market value becomes the main force of crypto reserves, with an average stock price soaring by 438% at the highest.

Author: Nancy, PAnews

After the traditional encryption gameplay such as brand name change and repurchase and destruction gradually became invalid, a more capital-based coin stock model began to emerge and even became a new narrative engine for crypto projects.

From finance to technology, from medical care to entertainment, more and more listed companies are following the micro-strategy path to include crypto assets such as BTC, ETH, SOL, TRX, etc. into the balance sheet, opening a capital game of valuation and repricing. This article PANews counts 30 US stock listed companies that officially announce crypto reserve plans.

From financial strategy to valuation logic, small and medium-sized

companies collectively replicate the "micro-strategy effect"

As a pioneer in coin stock strategy, Strategy took the lead in incorporating Bitcoin into the balance sheet as early as August 2020, a radical move that was regarded as an alternative financial experiment at the time. However, five years later, the once niche strategy is evolving into a mainstream narrative path that cross-industry companies compete to imitate. More and more companies, especially small and medium-sized listed companies, have begun to include crypto assets in the reserve system, trying to reconstruct their valuation logic through "crypto reserves + capital market leverage".

Judging from the 30 listed US stock companies currently counted, in addition to technology and financial technology companies represented by Strategy, BTCS, DeFi Technologies, traditional industries such as healthcare, biopharmaceuticals, e-commerce, education, new energy vehicles, agricultural product trade, and entertainment media have also gradually included crypto assets in the scope of asset allocation.

Most of these companies have common challenges such as weak main business growth, stagflation of valuation and insufficient liquidity, such as SharpLink Gaming, Semler Scientific, Kindly MD, Quantum BioPharma and Silo Pharma. Against the backdrop of traditional paths being blocked, deploying crypto assets is both a financial strategy and an attempt to reshape the capital market narrative. Take SharpLink Gaming as an example. The company was on the verge of delisting due to poor performance. After announcing Ethereum as its main reserve asset at the end of 2024, it quickly obtained a financing agreement of up to US$425 million. The market attention suddenly increased, and its market value soared from US$2 million to tens of millions of dollars, and its valuation logic was completely reconstructed.

The current crypto asset reserve structure is still based on Bitcoin as the absolute main force. According to statistical results, about 20 listed companies have clearly included BTC in their asset basket, including Strategy, GameStop, Trump Media, Rumble, Next Technology Holding, Cantor Equity, etc. Ethereum has gradually become the second most popular reserve asset, and companies such as BTCS, Treasure Global, and SharpLink Gaming have all chosen to configure ETH. Some companies choose more diversified asset portfolio strategies, such as DeFi Technologies, Siebert Financial, Interactive Strength, etc., to build hybrid crypto reserves through Bitcoin, Ethereum and other tokens, or to find a balance between risk resistance and market hype potential.

From a time perspective, although Strategy launched Bitcoin reserves as early as 2020, there were few responders in the following years. Until the fourth quarter of 2024, the price of Bitcoin returned to its high level, and Strategy's stock price rose sharply, driving its coin stock model yields to soar, and the crypto reserve wave entered a period of intensive explosion.

Most of the following companies are concentrated in the range of $100 million to $1 billion, while reserve targets range from millions to billions. Among them, Strategy's Bitcoin reserve target is as high as US$10 billion, Cantor Equity is US$3 billion, and Trump Media is US$2.5 billion. It is worth noting that some companies have reserve targets far higher than their market value, forming a significant risk leverage effect. Although it can stimulate market speculation expectations, it also aggravates the risk of valuation bubbles.

Judging from the stock price performance, most companies have experienced a strong short-term outbreak after releasing their reserve plans, with an average highest increase of 438.53%. Among them, since its first release, the highest intraday increase of 4315.85%; Asset Entities was 2096.72%; SharpLink Gaming reached 1747.62%; Kindly MD reached 791.54%. However, there are also many companies with little change in their share prices, such as SIEB, SILO, and DTCK. The market may lack confidence in their continued execution capabilities and narrative credibility.

Of course, in addition to the reserve behavior itself, some companies have further amplified their market effects by obtaining strategic support from crypto giants or well-known capital. For example, SharpLink Gaming has strategically bound to well-known institutions such as ConsenSys and has received endorsement from the Ethereum ecosystem; Cantor Equity Partners merged with Twenty One Capital and launched a BTC reserve strategy, supported by Tether, SoftBank and Brandon Lutnick, son of the US Secretary of Commerce; SRM Entertainment plans to use TRX as its core reserve asset and announced it has received support from TRON founder Justin Sun, the company's transaction volume on June 17 even surpassed Alibaba and Tencent. The injection of these encryption backgrounds brings an ecological voice to enterprises that exceeds financial allocation and enhances the linkage between their on-chain assets and capital markets.

It can be seen that more and more listed companies are no longer satisfied with only including mainstream crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum on their balance sheets, but have begun to allocate emerging crypto assets such as XRP, SOL, TRON and HYPE. In the future, crypto projects may become a new trend by lobbying or finding listed companies to establish reserves.

Overall, listed companies collectively flock to the crypto reserve field, which is superficially a recognition of crypto assets, but behind it is the skillful use of capital market mechanisms. Especially in the context of weak performance and limited market value, popular gameplay such as currency stocks can greatly reshape their own valuation logic. In the short term, this provides new financing paths and narrative exports for many small and medium-sized companies; in the long term, whether the corporate reserve structure is sustainable, whether the assets are valued, and whether the on-chain behavior is transparent will become the key to determining whether this trend can develop healthily.

Eat the "cake" of listed companies? Market risk and manipulation disputes

go hand in hand

As the trend of companies incorporating crypto assets into their balance sheets spreads rapidly, it has also caused widespread controversy in the market regarding risk management, market manipulation and institutional adaptability.

Bitcoin advocate David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin Magazine, sees this trend as a paradigm shift in capital structure. He said bluntly, "Whenever one of our Bitcoin vault reserve companies is included in an index, a traditional company that does not hold Bitcoin is kicked out. Sorry, your liquidity has now become the liquidity of Bitcoin. Join or be eliminated."

Blockstream CEO Adam Back also issued a similar warning, "Bitcoin vault reserve companies are constantly eating up the cake of listed companies. If you ignore the biggest arbitrage opportunity of the century, capital reconfiguration will eventually leave you behind. This is not actually an "optional."

Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi believes that in every market cycle, founders chase hot money flow. In the last cycle, issuing tokens was a hot topic because the crypto capital market was extremely active; in this cycle, introducing tokens into the stock market (similar to the fiscal company model) has become a new trend. He noted that hot money never stays in one place for a long time, which is why fiscal companies will not become the final model, but he expects the trend to continue for 1-2 years until the heat fades.

Regarding risk management of crypto-reserve companies, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor suggested, "It is not a good idea to release on-chain reserve proofs." He pointed out that publicly publishing wallet addresses may pose a long-term tracking risk to institutions. If the liabilities audited by the four major accounting firms are not disclosed, separate reserve information is meaningless.

Binance founder CZ also stressed on social media, "These companies are taking risks. Each company will take risks. Risk is not a binary state like 0 or 1. Risk is a range from 0 to 100. As long as you find the right balance, you can reach the best risk/return on investment (ROI) ratio that suits you best. Risk can/must be managed. Not taking risks is also a risk in itself."

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed in a question and answer that he had considered investing up to 80% of his balance sheet in Bitcoin, but ultimately decided to abandon this radical plan "because that could ruin the company." He explained that in the early stages, if BTC prices suddenly fall, the company's funding runway could plummet from 18 months to 10 months, affecting financing and business development. He further noted that the company does hold bitcoin on its balance sheet and currently holds about 25% of its net cash in cryptocurrency. "We're not going to put 80% into it, I think that's too risky."

As for some small and medium-sized listed companies that announced large reserves were allocated to altcoins, Matthew Sigel, head of digital assets at VanEck, noted that the companies claimed to buy hundreds of millions of dollars in tokens (such as XRP and SOL), and these so-called reserve plans are likely to be just a means to push up the stock prices of small-cap companies, many of which trade on Nasdaq. "Many of them are insiders trying to push up shipments. If the market value is small and new investors are not disclosed, I will decide this is a scam."

Regarding the expansion of this leverage model, digital asset bank Sygnum warned in its latest report that companies such as Strategy continue to increase their holdings of Bitcoin through leverage methods such as issuing bonds, which is deviating from the financial strategies of traditional companies. This approach may weaken the applicability of Bitcoin as a central bank reserve asset, and excessive centralized holdings may lead to a decline in market liquidity and intensified price volatility, thereby affecting the allocation willingness of central banks and other institutions.

Max Keiser, an early Bitcoin advocate, also questioned emerging Bitcoin finance companies that mimic Strategy's route, believing they have not yet experienced the test of a real bear market. He stressed that "Saylor never sold Bitcoin in a bear market, but continued to buy. Only companies that remained in their positions during the most difficult times in the market can be called the true believers of Bitcoin vaults."

In general, crypto assets are elevating from financial reserves to corporate strategy, but the success or failure of the strategy will ultimately be left to the market to decide.