From Circle to Bullish: Crypto Wraps Up 'Bellwether Year' for IPOs
Crypto companies rushed to Wall Street in 2025, with Circle, Bullish, and eToro going public while Kraken lined up for its market debut.
In brief
- Circle and Bullish finally went public in 2025 after past failed SPAC attempts, with both seeing strong initial investor interest despite Circle's later momentum slowdown.
- Trading platform eToro reached a $5.4 billion valuation at its May Nasdaq debut, while Kraken filed for IPO in November following an $800 million raise that valued it at $20 billion.
- The year marked a turning point for crypto companies accessing public markets, driven by renewed retail interest, political tailwinds, and improved market conditions.
This year has arguably been the biggest and most consequential on record for crypto IPOs.
A surge in retail interest, renewed political tailwinds, and a reopened U.S. IPO market helped push a wave of crypto firms onto public exchanges. Reuters described a “rush to Wall Street IPOs” driven by the year’s crypto resurgence, while Barron’s reported that crypto flotations were “making Wall Street go wild.”
Against that backdrop, companies from exchanges to stablecoin issuers raced to tap public markets—setting the stage for an unusually crowded IPO calendar.
For a long time, the industry’s one big IPO win was Coinbase’s Nasdaq debut in 2021. The years since then were filled with crypto firms trying—but not always succeeding—to go public via SPAC, or special purpose acquisition companies. A SPAC is a publicly traded shell company that raises money from investors and then merges with a private firm to take it public without a traditional IPO.
Two notable 2025 IPOs, USDC issuer Circle and crypto exchange Bullish, were preceded by such attempts.
Circle first tried to go public in 2021 through a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp. The deal would have valued the company at up to $9 billion, but it was terminated in late 2022 after repeated delays and changing market conditions.
When Circle did finally make its debut on the New York Stock Exchange this year, it was so popular with investors that NYSE halted trading three times within the first hour. But the company has seen its momentum slow as the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates and investors fret that it’ll impact interest earned on the cash reserves that back USDC stablecoins.