By Brian Swint

Bitcoin, the largest and oldest cryptocurrency, was rising early Friday along with other big-name tokens. It's likely being helped by fresh interest in the assets.

GameStop, the videogame retailer that gained fame as a meme stock in 2020, is considering investing in Bitcoin and other cryptos, CNBC reported citing people familiar with the matter. Meme stocks were called that because they gained popularity, and saw big price gains, without any significant change to company fundamentals--large numbers of retail investors bought the shares after being prodded by cultural items like pictures or cartoons that were spread on the internet.

The shift would make GameStop more like MicroStrategy, which relies on Bitcoin purchases as a core of its business strategy. That might represent a more promising future for GameStop as sales of physical copies of games dwindle. MicroStrategy is booming--it even decided to change its name to Strategy, ditching the "micro" prefix that suggests a small size.

GameStop shares jumped 6.3% in premarket trading to $28, though coming into the session they're still down 16% since Jan. 1.

The bigger picture is that President Donald Trump has been good for crypto so far--he promises to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world." Signs that the new administration will enforce light-touch regulation in the sector have buoyed prices since Trump was elected in November.

Another crypto-related company that is doing well is the exchange platform Coinbase, which reported earnings on Thursday that were more than double what analysts had expected. Its shares slipped 1.3% in Friday's premarket. Similarly, Robinhood Markets, a financial services firm that lets individuals trade stocks as well as other assets, reported blowout earnings and said that crypto revenue jumped 700% in the most recent quarter. Robinhood was down 0.5% before the market opened.

Bitcoin was up 0.8% in the past 24 hours at $97,100. It reached its highest ever in January at about $109,000 but remains about 40% higher than before Trump's victory at the polls. XRP, the crypto that's had a long-standing dispute with regulators, rose 12% in the past 24 hours. Ethereum added 1.1% and Solana gained 2.8%.

Write to Brian Swint at brian.swint@barrons.com

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February 14, 2025 05:31 ET (10:31 GMT)

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