Crypto
crypto
Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

Circle drops after 10 million share offering with top shareholders and CEO reducing their positions

Stablecoin giant Circle announced a secondary stock sale of 10 million shares. The company will offer 10 million shares of its Class A common stock, with selling stockholders offering 8 million of those shares, according to a press release. Underwriters have an option to purchase an additional 1.5 million shares.

The stock was down 2% in premarket trading.  

The majority of the offering is effectively a liquidity event for some of Circle’s largest holders and insiders. Assuming the underwriters’ option is not exercised, IDG Capital will sell 1.17 million, General Catalyst will unload 1.12 million, and Fidelity’s position will be down by about 750,000 shares. Private equity firms Oak Investment Partners and Accel are also owners of 5% of the company and are reducing their exposure in this offering, while CEO and Chairman Jeremy Allaire is selling 357,812 shares.

Circle’s lockup period is poised to expire on either the second trading day following the release of earnings for the quarter ending September 30, 2025 (i.e., about three months from now) or 180 days after its initial public offering — whichever comes first. This secondary offering allows some important shareholders to book gains after the stock’s hot post-IPO run.

Circle expects to raise $309.4 million to $542.6 million from this offering, depending on how much (or whether) underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares.

The announcement came hours after the company released its first earnings report as a public company, beating analysts’ revenue estimates but missing on earnings-per-share estimates. It also comes two months after its massive IPO.

Circle issues USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar that has a $65 billion market cap and is the second-largest stablecoin. Its circulation “grew 90% year-over-year to $61.3 billion at quarter end, and has grown an additional 6.4% to $65.2 billion as of August 10, 2025,” per the earnings report.

Some of the risk factors of the offering include that the company faces “intense and increasing competition” and that “stablecoins may face periods of uncertainty, loss of trust, or systemic shocks resulting in the potential for rapid redemption requests (or runs),” per the SEC filing.

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While the crypto industry has shed $564.3 billion in 2026, Hyperliquid’s native token has bucked the downtrend and jumped 54.8% year-to-date.

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Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter. 

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows. 

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions. 

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

crypto
Sage D. Young

SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework. 

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy
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Citi analysts cut 12-month bitcoin projection to $112,000 from $143,000

The analysts’ bear-case scenario is $57,537, based on “recessionary macro-factors, especially weak equity markets,” which could cause ETF flows to stall.

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