06-11-2025 
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The explosive Nasdaq debut of stablecoin issuer Circle (NASDAQ: CRCL) is proof positive that irrational crypto exuberance is impeding investors’ ability to read a balance sheet.
- Buy? Why? Why not?
- Tether pulls out measuring tape to prove it’s bigger
- Gemini, Uphold want in on the action
- Binance? Not so much
On June 5, USDC stablecoin issuer Circle’s first day of trading on the Nasdaq exchange saw the shares soar from their initial price of $31—which was already upsized twice from the original pre-launch range of $24-$26—to above $104 before closing Thursday’s trading above $83.
The demand was so manic that the Nasdaq’s automatic limiting feature halted trading three times in the first hour the shares were available due to the extreme volatility. The shares jumped another 29% on Friday, closing just under $108, and rose again Monday, topping $138 before surrendering some of those gains to close at $115.25 (+7% for the day, +270% since its debut).
How overblown is this reaction? Consider that by mid-Monday, Circle’s market capitalization was half of USDC’s market cap of $61 billion (which, ironically, has fallen slightly from its pre-Nasdaq level).
The investor enthusiasm is all the more puzzling given Circle’s admission that 98% of its revenue comes from interest generated on the U.S. Treasury bills that it holds as reserves backing that $61 billion of circulating USDC. Unlike its exchange partners, Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) and Binance—to whom Circle pays significant fees for enjoying premium placement and promotion—Circle makes bupkis off secondary USDC transactions.
Moreover, while T-bills offered generous returns as interest rates spiked during the pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve to drastically cut interest rates. Current Fed chair Jerome Powell has to date resisted these ‘suggestions,’ but Powell’s term expires next May, and Trump has already teased that he has Powell’s more willing replacement picked out.
Some analysts have suggested that every quarter-point cut to the Fed’s rates will shave $100 million off Circle’s annual earnings, requiring 10% growth in either the overall stablecoin market or Circle’s slice of that market just to offset each quarter-point reduction.
While Coinbase makes major bank off its USDC ties, Circle’s prospectus showed its 2024 profits were seriously declining even as its revenue rose. Circle further warned that it expects its expenses to continue to rise “as we add distributors and approved participants” tasked with helping Circle boost USDC adoption.
There’s also the fact that USDC now has a significant stateside competitor in the form of USD1, the stablecoin issued in March by World Liberty Financial (WLF). WLF is the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform controlled by a corporation linked to the Trump family.
In March, the president issued an executive order suggesting that stablecoins could play a major role in government-issued payments. Given the lack of serious pushback on the Trump family’s questionable crypto ventures, USD1 might get preferential treatment for those digital disbursements.
Regardless, the Nasdaq feeding frenzy was welcomed by Circle, which withdrew its original initial public offering (IPO) plans in late 2022 due to the unforeseen arrival of ‘crypto winter’ and its string of bankruptcies, frauds, and highly public meltdowns.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire tweeted his pride and gratitude for the support of everyone who’d helped the company get to this point. Allaire’s personal fortune has soared by over $2 billion after selling 1.6 million of his shares, and he retains ownership of another 18 million shares, along with options and restricted units.
The momentum behind Circle is such that companies have already filed two applications for Circle-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs). One is based on applying 2x leverage to Circle’s share price, while the other is a covered call options strategy.
Tether to Circle: ‘ours is bigger’
Circle’s Nasdaq rocket ride has many wondering what valuation might await Tether, the issuer of the market-leading USDT stablecoin, should it choose to follow Circle’s IPO trail. When someone suggested Tether could be worth $515 billion, CEO Paolo Ardoino called that figure “a bit bearish,” given the 100,000+ BTC tokens and 50+ tons physical gold that Ardoino claims are part of the reserves backing USDT’s $155 billion market cap.
Tether has never submitted its reserves to an official third-party audit, offering instead quarterly attestations that reflect only what its accounts claim to hold on a single day in each 90-day period. Ardoino has repeatedly claimed to be “engaging” with unidentified ‘Big 4’ accounting firms regarding a potential audit, but this process remains very much a mirage.
Ardoino has justified this glacial pursuit by claiming that auditors are fearful of taking on crypto clients. However, Circle’s IPO prospectus confirmed that Big 4 firm Deloitte & Touche LLP had audited the financial statements contained therein, including the “financial statements and financial highlights of Circle Reserve Fund.”
Tether notably self-reports billions of dollars in profits every quarter, including a total profit of $13 billion for 2024 as a whole. This is over 83x the profit reported by Circle last year, despite USDT’s market cap being only ~3x USDC’s at the end of last year.
Small wonder, then, that Ardoino tweeted that Tether has “[n]o need to go public.” That said, ‘no desire’ to go public might be more appropriate, given that doing so would force Tether’s hand on performing that elusive and overdue audit.Gemini twins say ‘me two’
The day after Circle’s meteoric Nasdaq debut, the Gemini digital asset exchange announced that it had ‘confidentially’ filed its own IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The confidential angle will allow Gemini to get the wheels in motion without having to disclose the hard numbers behind its operations until closer to its listing launch date. The company said it has yet to decide on the size of the offering or a potential share price range.
The news isn’t that surprising, as Gemini is one of a handful of digital asset firms that appear newly emboldened to cash in their chips in the infinitely more relaxed market since President Trump was sworn into office in January.
Gemini, which is controlled by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, was among the many crypto firms in recent years to be served with an SEC civil complaint for selling unregistered securities to the public. However, that suit was put on the back burner in February following Trump’s inauguration and the installation of crypto-friendly individuals at the top of the SEC org chart.
Gemini is not a major player in the centralized exchange market, currently ranked #15 on CoinGecko’s list of top exchanges by trading volume (U.S. rivals Coinbase and Kraken ranked fifth and sixth, respectively.) But as Circle’s Nasdaq coming-out party suggests, investors are in a ‘take my money’ mood, so why not strike while the iron is hot (and the reasoning is ice cold)?
Uphold on a moment…
Also reportedly mulling a plunge into the IPO pool is Uphold, a U.S.-based digital asset payment/trading platform that also allows users to trade more traditional assets, including fiat currencies, certain equities, and precious metals. Uphold CEO Simon McLoughlin told The Block that the company had appointed FT Partners to explore various strategic options, including a potential public float.
Uphold is an even smaller player than Gemini, with suggestions of a valuation of around $1.5 billion. However, McLoughlin said the company generated over $300 million in revenue last year, up from just $80 million in 2022. Uphold could also become a potential acquisition target for traditional finance companies looking to stake out a position in digital assets without building something from scratch.
Last week, Uphold struck a deal to allow U.K.-based investment/trading platform IG Group to offer digital asset trades, with Uphold executing customer transactions and handling pricing data. The deal made IG Group the first U.K.-listed firm to offer such trades to retail customers.
Binance bucks the trend
Meanwhile, Binance CEO Richard Teng told The Street that his company won’t be stampeding toward a market listing anytime soon. Teng said “very important corporate decisions” like an initial public offering were something that would have to be discussed “at the board of directors level and discuss with the shareholders what’s the intention.”
Binance is the unquestioned market-leading digital asset exchange, controlling around two-fifths of all centralized exchange spot token trading volume. Teng said Binance was in “very healthy financial shape” and continued to enjoy “sharp growth in terms of user numbers throughout the world, both institution and new retail users.”
Binance is also not exactly starving for working capital, having just received a $2 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi state-supported investment group MGX in March. The investment was the first institutional investment deal that Binance struck, and the exchange could likely secure similar large deals from other institutional investors should it choose to pursue those opportunities.
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