Welcome back, readers! Today is the last day that the Empire newsletter’s Katherine Ross takes over for Byron (I know, don’t cry.) As expected, she ends the week with a banger. Let’s get into it:

Has Circle set the bar?

The race to IPO has begun. 

Circle’s success is proving to be exactly what other companies that were interested in debuting on the public market wanted to see. 

If you don’t believe me, just take a look at Gemini. Yes, the company has clearly been interested in going public, but announcing that it confidentially filed its S-1 with the SEC is no coincidence. 

“I suspect we’ll be seeing several crypto companies accelerating their IPO plans now that Circle has revealed Wall Street’s appetite,” GSR’s Carlos Guzman told us yesterday.

Unfortunately, we don’t quite know what Gemini’s S-1 looks like…yet. The draft still needs to be reviewed by the SEC before it publicly files the registration statement that’ll give us an inside look into how the company’s operating.

I can’t say I blame Gemini for taking this route, though. Look at CRCL’s performance today, for example: It managed to stay above $100 throughout the day, closing up 29% at $107.

But the success of the IPO didn’t seem to be enough to sway Empire co-host and Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz in this week’s roundup. 

Yanowitz said if he were to recreate his equity portfolio from scratch, he’d include Coinbase and Robinhood, but not Circle. 

“I think we’re nearing a local top in sentiment for stablecoins,” Yanowitz explained. “I think Circle hit this IPO perfectly.”

But it’s not enough to get him to buy the stock.

That’s okay, though; there are plenty of other interested buyers. Take, for example, Cathie Wood’s Ark. In a filing prior to the IPO, Circle disclosed that the fund was interested in $150 million worth of shares. Yesterday, however, it ended up with nearly 4.5 million Circle shares, an amount worth over $373 million.

Based on today’s action, the overall appetite isn’t waning. Unless you’re Arca’s Jeff Dorman. 

Yesterday, Arca CIO Jeff Dorman posted an open letter to Circle in a now-deleted X post. 

TL;DR (or if you were too focused on Elon Musk’s crash out) Arca and Dorman weren’t too pleased with the allocation of Circle shares. Dorman said that the firm has since sold its allocation. 

I’d still mark the Circle IPO as a huge success, drama aside. Now let’s see who else wants to join them on the public stage.

— Katherine Ross 

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