rewrite this title Public Keys: Coinbase’s Convertible, Core Combo Fight and Block’s Bitcoin Play – Decrypt

Public Keys is a weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies.

Coinbase Convertible Raise

Crypto exchange Coinbase is raising a little spending money—just $2 billion—in convertible notes.

Sure, we hear this kind of thing a lot when it’s Bitcoin and Ethereum treasuries. But the San Francisco-based company said this raise will be used for “general corporate purposes” and “acquisitions of other companies, products, or technologies.”

The announcement landed right after some analysts (not all), decided they didn’t like the look of that 25% revenue drop in Q2.

Compass Point moved COIN from the Neutral to Sell column, saying that the revenue miss was confirmation that the company’s retail trading business is “getting disrupted” by decentralized exchanges and ETFs.

That could help explain why Coinbase just rolled out decentralized exchange trading in its app for its U.S. users.

More worrying, though, was the fact that subscriptions and services didn’t have more to contribute, the analysts said. That’s the line item that covers the premium Coinbase One memberships, stablecoin revenue, staking, and custody services.

With the presidential ink dry on the stablecoin-regulating GENIUS Act, USDC issuer Circle a few months into its tenure as a publicly traded company (remember, they have a revenue sharing deal), and the proliferation of digital asset treasuries—analysts were expecting that segment to overperform.

Core Combo Fight

One of Bitcoin miner Core Scientific’s top investors wants to cut the music on the Core fusion dance.

Two Seas Capital, Core Scientific’s largest active shareholder with a 6.3% stake, intends to vote against a $9 billion all-stock sale to CoreWeave, saying in a press release Thursday that the offer represents an “inadequate valuation.”

The firm said it has established such a large stake in Core Scientific because it believes it’s a strong contender to build “critical, high-performance computing infrastructure at scale”—the infrastructure very much needed to power the artificial intelligence boom.

Two Seas, which is also an investor in CoreWeave, said the structure of the deal shortchanges CORZ investors and leaves them absorbing volatility from CRWV.

“In our view, the transaction decidedly and unfairly favors CoreWeave at the expense of Core Scientific shareholders,” the firm added, chiding the board for not entertaining offers from other suitors.

The vote hasn’t yet been scheduled, but it’s expected to take place before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Core Scientific reported its Q2 earnings after the bell on Friday. But there was too much potential merger fracas for an actual earnings call.

“Due to the pending transaction with CoreWeave, Inc., which was previously announced on July 7, 2025, the Company will not be hosting a conference call or webcast to discuss its second quarter fiscal year 2025 results,” the company said.

Block Hearts Bitcoin

Block Inc. added 108 Bitcoin to its corporate holdings in Q2, bringing its total corporate holdings to 8,692 BTC—worth approximately $1 billion at the current price.

Keep in mind, Block CEO Jack Dorsey has been a fan of Bitcoin since is earliest days. It should be no surprise that the company’s shoring up its own BTC treasury.

With an average cost of $31,248 per BTC, the company’s sitting on paper gains of 273.29%. But the more interesting data point comes from the Bitcoin the company sold—but not its own.

Block Inc. allows people to buy Bitcoin through its very popular Cash App. And of the $6 billion in revenue the company saw in Q2, $2.14 billion of it was generated just from Bitcoin sales in the app.

That Bitcoin revenue shows only a slight slowdown from Q1, when the company reported $2.3 billion in revenue from Bitcoin. If Block Inc. wants to see its 2025 Bitcoin revenue top last year, it’s going to need to see things pick up mightily in the back half of the year.

In 2024, Block reported $10.2 billion worth of Bitcoin revenue for the whole year—meaning that it’s lagging behind that mark now.

But Dorsey had promises of other Bitcoin news during yesterday’s earnings call: “We’re going to have some news very, very soon,” he said of Proto, the company’s Bitcoin mining initiative.

And, wouldn’t you guess it, Proto has a deal locked in to sell its Bitcoin mining chips to none other than Core Scientific in one of the largest ASIC agreements ever signed.

Other Keys

Bullish makes it official: Crypto exchange Bullish formally registered its initial public offering with the SEC, aiming to raise $629 million at a valuation between $3.8 and $4.2 billion. This will be the company’s second attempt at going public, after calling off a SPAC merger in 2022.

Buying the Solana dip: When alts take a breather, treasury companies line their coffers. DeFi Dev Corp bought up $18 million worth of Solana on Monday, bringing its total holdings to 1.23 million SOL.