Alternative Investing Report - August 14, 2025

*as of 8/13; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, ETH

The cryptocurrency exchange Bullish debuted on the New York Stock exchange with the ticker BLSH and saw it shares close the day at $68 per share, more than 80% higher than its IPO price of $37. Last week the company had hoped to raise around $600 million at a $4.2 billion valuation, but ended up pricing its shares higher and raising $1.1 billion at a $5.6 billion market cap.

➨ TAKEAWAY: This offering is the latest successful IPO for crypto companies and for the market in general, and should only push more crypto-based companies, particularly exchanges such as Gemini and Kraken, to do their own IPOs in the next year. However, investors should be aware that although the IPO was priced at $37 per share, it opened for trading at $90 per share and initially rose to $118 per share before dropping precipitously by day’s end. Though the IPO was successful for the company and early investors, if you bought in right at the start, you’d be down as of now.

Vincent co-founders Eric Cantor and Adam Katz discuss the newest trend in crypto: publicly-traded treasury companies, and what investors should know about them. (7 mins)

Crypto continued its bull run, with the market as a whole up more than 3% today and Bitcoin hitting another new all-time high, surassing the $124,000 mark. Meanwhile, Ethereum rose again to around $4,800, coming close to its all-time high, and Cardano’s price jumped nearly 15%.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Crypto is riding a wave with increased demand coming from treasury companies and investors piling into ETFs, as well as a more general risk-on investing environment developing. As the asset class matures and with growing institutional support, it may not experience as much volatility or the same downturns as it has in the past.

🤖 Perplexity targets Chrome: The AI search startup made a $34.5 billion bid for the popular web browser that Google could be ordered to divest from due to antitrust concerns. It is unclear where Perplexity would get those funds, as it is only valued at around $18 billion itself.

🏢 CRE Investment rising: Excluding entity-level sales, investment activity in commercial real estate grew 13% year-over-year in Q2, with the office and retail sectors recording the biggest percentage gains.

🎨 Inflation and the art market: During the period of high inflation post-pandemic, art gained a reputation as an inflation hedge, with higher-value artwork retaining its value the best, but a reduction in purchasing power also lowers overall demand.

🚀 Carbon tech funding falls: VC investment into carbon and emissions tech startups hit a 4-year low in Q2, as political headwinds grew stronger.

🏡 Outstanding mortgages: More than half of existing mortgage holders have rates below 4%, and more than 80% have rates less than 6%, as the proportion of homeowners who are “locked in” to their properties due to not wanting a higher rate remains a hindrance to the market as a whole.

🎸 Van Halen guitar: Legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s 1982 Kramer electric guitar is going to be auctioned off in October at Sotheby’s, and carries a $2 million - $3 million price tag.

OpenAI’s recent update to ChatGPT-5 faced a swift backlash from users who preferred the earlier ChatGPT-4o model that it replaced, and now OpenAI has restored access to the old model. With the shift to the new model, many users felt like they were losing a friend, or in some cases, a romantic partner. Yes, there is now a growing subculture of people who believe they are in relationships with an AI bot, and one woman garnered a lot of attention this past week when she got “engaged” to her AI boyfriend. There are growing concerns that people are becoming too emotionally attached to AI models, and that this is exacerbating existing mental health conditions. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman voiced his own concerns on X (Twitter) about how human attachment to AI will evolve in the future, which at least means that they are thinking about how to tackle the problem.