GameStop's plans to expand its non-fungible tokens (NFTs) marketplace and partner with crypto firms spurred a rally in the video game retailer's shares on Friday.
The company was last year at the centre of a battle between small investors co-ordinating on online forums and Wall Street hedge funds, leading to massive gains in its shares. But with retail interest fading, its stock has languished since November.
On Friday, GameStop rose 14% as a report that it would build an online hub for trading NFTs for virtual game collectibles and establish cryptocurrency partnerships revived interest in its shares on social media and trading forums.
NFTs which use blockchain to record the ownership of digital items such as images or videos, surged in popularity in 2021, leaving many baffled why so much money was being spent on items that do not physically exist.
The highly volatile crypto assets have cratered in recent months, with bitcoin plummeting to a more than three-month low of $42,001.97, down about 38% from its $69,000 all-time high in November.
Ether, used to buy NFTs, has slumped to $3,219.77, levels last seen in early October.
"Meme stocks are speculative rather than fundamental and, to a degree, cryptos are also little speculative in nature ... too much of an exposure to cryptos could have an effect on the balance sheets of these companies," said Mirabaud analyst Neil Campling.
The highly-shorted GameStop has seen an increase in bets against the company over the past 30 days, with short interest increasing by 1.18 million to $1.11 billion, or 13.4% of the total short interest as a percentage of free float, according to data from S3 Partners.
But Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners, said Friday's move was unlikely to be a short-covering rally.
"First we would need to wipe out recent mark-to-market profits on the short side, which means getting back to levels in the $170 - $200 stock price range," for a short squeeze to happen, Dusaniwsky said.
Luis Armando Albino was six years old in 1951 when he was abducted while playing at an Oakland, Calif., park. Now, more than seven decades later, Albino has been found thanks to help from an online ancestry test, old photos and newspaper clippings.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is telling world leaders to either bury their heads in the sand or put differences aside for the sake of future generations.
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Kate, the Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Sunday since she announced she had completed chemotherapy and would return to some public duties.
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North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson avoided directly weighing in during a gubernatorial campaign event Saturday on a CNN report outlining evidence that he made disturbing posts on a pornography website's message board more than a decade ago.
An explosion in a coal mine in eastern Iran killed at least 33 workers and injured 17 others, officials said Sunday, marking one of the worst mining disasters in the country's history as others remained missing hours after the blast.
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In less than two months, Americans will go to the polls to choose their next president. But the process that translates those millions of votes into one seat in the Oval Office is much more complicated than a straight tally.
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At least two students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania have been suspended from the swim team after a report that a racial slur was scratched onto a student's body, officials said.
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Procurement Minister and newly appointed Quebec lieutenant Jean-Yves Duclos is warning the NDP that the dental care program it helped put into place will be in jeopardy if it pulls its support from the governing Liberals.
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The owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant said Friday that it plans to restart the reactor under a 20-year agreement that calls for tech giant Microsoft to buy the power to supply its data centers with carbon-free energy.
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Tim Burton's legacy sequel to the 1988 horror comedy topped the North American box office charts for a third
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The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have a nickname for the opposition’s end zone. They refer to it as the “chicken box.â€
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has accused Tesla CEO Elon Musk of 'remotely disabling' his Cybertruck, which had been sent to the frontline of Russia's war in Ukraine.
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Â鶹´«Ã½ Montreal at Six for Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 with anchor Matt Gilmour.
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The most popular hockey podcasters on the planet brought some major attention to the Forest City this weekend with the annual Chiclets Cup.
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A year after being recognized as one of 19 ‘Bee Campuses’ by Bee City Canada, Georgian College continues to promote the importance of bees to agriculture, the economy and education.
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The St. Clair College Saints were in Oshawa over the weekend as they faced Durham College.
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A Victoria woman is now $1 million richer after winning a Maxmillions prize on a recent Lotto Max Draw.
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Lethbridge County has rescinded its fire restriction as a result of the recent cool, wet weathr.
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A 16-year-old biennial event aimed at fostering business in the country's eastern Arctic and northern regions has been cancelled indefinitely as a dispute unfolds between Inuit in Canada and a Labrador group claiming to share their heritage.
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