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The Ghost of January 2021: Retail Makes Noise Again 📈

The Ghost of January 2021: Retail Makes Noise Again 📈

GameStop chatter surges, Bitcoin outshines gold, and Tether crosses 500M users. Add Chainlink’s Fed cameo and you’ve got a market where memes meet monetary policy.

Cryptopolitan News
October 22, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

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The retail spirit has returned.

Gamestop (GME) along with Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), Chainlink (LINK) and Ethereum (ETH) are provoking the greatest level of discussions between crypto enthusiasts, a combination of nostalgia, liquidity, legitimacy that is driving a market-wide narrative reset.

GameStop short squeeze predictions resurface

References to “GME” have soared into the top of Santiment’s social trends as traders return to the narrative of this year’s short squeeze saga which sparked meme-stock mania.

The similarities are difficult to ignore: retail chat rooms are once again filled with people shouting for another squeeze, after Beyond Meat BYND, -0.20% had just yesterday a 128% moonshot.

GameStop’s price surged from $17 to above $500 back in 2021 when Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets set its sights on shorted hedge funds. Now, investors are referring to this week’s rally as “the ghost of January 2021.”

Bitcoin steals gold’s thunder

On Tuesday, bitcoin briefly soared past $113,000: at a moment when gold was taking a 5% pounding to $4,130 and silver was falling by just under 7%, among the steepest corrections in years.

The turnaround followed nervous movements in commodity markets amid trade tensions between the United States and China. As investors sold off metals, BTC resumed its position as the inflation hedge of choice, with analysts referring to it as “the digital gold that works.”

But momentum waned after President Trump raised doubts about meeting China’s Xi Jinping, prompting some short-term profit-taking.

Tether hits 500 million users

Tether (USDT) is making news now that it’s reached a record 500 million users, according to its CEO Paolo Ardoino. The milestone is a cherry on top of a massive year: the company recorded $4.9B in Q2 earnings, funded largely through its U.S. Treasury reserves.

Bloomberg reports that Tether now wants to raise $20B at a valuation of $500B: which would rank it among world’s most valuable private companies.

However, regulatory friction continues. Tether has ramped up its focus on the U.S. market after EU delistings under MiCA rules, preparing a new compliant stablecoin USAT by the end of this year.

Chainlink enters the world of the Fed

Chainlink (LINK) stole the show for institutions this week at the Federal Reserve’s Payments Innovation Conference, where co-founder Sergey Nazarov shared a stage with senior execs from BNY Mellon, Fireblocks and Lead Bank.

Nazarov shared that 70% of RWA issuers and stablecoin projects are already using Chainlink’s infrastructure and made a forceful appeal to U.S. policymakers: Act now to enable digital payment interoperability before other countries set the standard.

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Stablecoins and tokenized deposits can scale very well outside the U.S. more than anywhere else - provided a framework is supportive of them

Nazarov said

📈 From memes to monetary policy, crypto’s narrative this week covers the spectrum: retail nostalgia, institutional validation and technical evolution.

If the chatter is any indication, the market’s heartbeat just accelerated ever so slightly again.

📊 Market Watch

1️⃣ $7B in Stablecoins flow back into markets

Tether, and Circle (Bitfinex) have created $7B worth of new stablecoins since the October 11 “crash” with USDT alone printing another Billion dollars in just eight hours. The surge suggests some key issuers are shoring up liquidity to help stabilize markets and return in coming days.

2️⃣ Bitcoin Whales Transfer $3B Into BlackRock ETFs

More than $3 billion in bitcoin has moved through BlackRock’s new ETF structure quietly, using in-kind conversions: so whales can move their coins from wallets into brokerage accounts without being taxed by Uncle Sam. BTC is now being integrated into private-bank portfolios, according to BlackRock’s Robbie Mitchnick: “Life just gets a bit easier in TradFi land.”

3️⃣ Jupiter Launches Prediction Markets With Kalshi Data

Solana’s leading DEX Jupiter is launching on-chain prediction markets, powered by Kalshi’s regulated event data, starting with wagers for the F1 Mexico Grand Prix. The move further heats up its competition with Polymarket, as the two sports for retail traders using micro-betting markets that resolve in a matter of minutes.

👀 Chart our analyst is watching

Alphabet

Shares of Alphabet (GOOGL) fell 3% on Tuesday, wiping roughly $70B in market value, after OpenAI unveiled its new ChatGPT Atlas browser: a direct rival to Chrome. The timing hit sentiment hard as investors fear browser-based AI could disrupt Google’s ad-driven search model.