Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire in 2021 (Jabin Botsford/Getty Images)

Circle files for IPO as crypto’s mainstream push continues

The company’s CEO says it’ll be an “adventure.”

4/1/25 6:13PM

Stablecoin firm Circle has finally filed for an IPO, after much speculation around it, according to an SEC filing.

The filing comes at a time of a renewed interest in stablecoins — a type of crypto pegged to an asset, generally a fiat currency like the dollar, though they can also be pegged to a commodity like gold.

The move by Circle, which issues USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market cap, also underscores the renewed activity in the crypto IPO space. Last week, trading platform eToro filed for an IPO, and crypto exchange Kraken is also rumored to be mulling a public offering.

Underwriters include JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, and Societe Generale, the filing shows.

“To understand Circle and its potential, I want to take you through the journey I’ve been on, how it led to the vision behind the founding of Circle, and the path of execution that leads us here today. I also want to share with you my thoughts on what it means for Circle to become a public company, and how I think about Circle’s role in the global financial system in the coming decade,” Circle founder Jeremy Allaire wrote in the SEC filing.

As The Block reported, this is Circle’s second attempt at going public. The first one, via a SPAC, collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges, according to the report.

Stablecoins are having a moment, from being top of mind at the Crypto Summit to World Liberty Financial, the Trump-backed DeFi crypto project, announcing the launch of a stablecoin just last week.

“The Circle IPO is one of the handful of private crypto companies looking to go public in the upcoming quarters, and its IPO is timely with the push for updated stablecoin regulation,” Alan Orwick, cofounder of scalable and programmable proof-of-work blockchain Quai Network, told Sherwood News.

Sage D. Young3/20/26

Altcoin trading activity has lost its mojo

Non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies have seen their trading volume plummet in the past five months. The combined trading volume of ethereum, XRP, solana, dogecoin, SUI, and chainlink has decreased by 60% since crypto’s October 10 liquidation event, according to Thomas Probst, a research analyst at crypto markets data provider Kaiko.

Main Altcoins Trading Volume in USD — The trading volume of ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, SUI, and LINK.

For all altcoins, spot trading volume on Binance has declined between 80% and 85% to $7.7 billion, while altcoin volume on other exchanges has dropped to $18.8 billion, down from a range of $63 billion to $91 billion in October, a Friday report from Decrypt found, citing data from CryptoQuant.

“This trend may be explained by a contraction in market liquidity over the same period,” Probst told Sherwood News. “This phenomenon is also reflected in the average 1% market depth, which stood at approximately $2.6 million before the October 10 crash and is now closer to $1.7 million when aggregated across ETH, XRP, SOL, SUI, and LINK.”

Market depth is used by investors and traders to gauge the scale of liquidity in a market. 1% market depth refers to the amount of liquidity needed to move the market by 1%.

CoinGlass’s Altcoin Season Index, a measure to assess the performance of non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, has been sitting above 50 this week, suggesting that the current market is neither in a bitcoin dominant phase nor an altcoin season.

“Triple witching” day may put further pressure on bitcoin’s price

This is not “a favorable environment for risk assets.”

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy3/20/26

Sage D. Young

3/19/26

Hyperliquid is the “1,000 pound gorilla in the room” leading year-to-date market gains amid conflict in the Middle East

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.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

3/19/26

Bitcoin tumbles as oil and gas prices spike and the market’s mood turns risk-off

Bitcoin ETFs reverted to outflows and bitcoin suffered $192 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours.

Sage D. Young3/18/26

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