News
Circle IPO: Everything You Need to Know
Circle went public yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.
It's the company behind $USDC. The Initial Public Offering was reportedly oversubscribed by ~25x.
The price action was wild. It went public at $31, went as high as $103 before closing around $83. That's crazy.
There are criticisms against bankers who valued Circle at ~$7B. The argument? If they'd set a higher valuation, Circle could've raised more than $1 billion in cash. On the flip side, some are supporting the decision to create a good green chart from the start.
So… what exactly does Circle do?
Circle has tried many things over its history. From Circle Pay as a Venmo competitor to the recent Circle Payment Network. But the core of its business is $USDC.
- Issue $USDC onchain and make sure it's pegged to $1.
- Invest the fiat USD in US Treasuries and earn the risk-free rate.
In short: Increase $USDC supply = More yield = More revenue for Circle.
Since it's an onchain software, it shouldn't cost much in terms of operational expenses like human capital.
Their main cost is in distribution. They pay a ton of money to Coinbase, which creates distribution for them. In 2022, the distribution cost was only 37.2%. But by Q1 2025, it became 60%.
Coinbase is the only crypto company on the TradFi stock market. When $COIN started trading, it was followed by a 54% drop in BTC in 3 months.
Naturally, some folks are worried we're setting up for a deja vu moment.
On top of Circle's IPO, we've also got two more capital-sucking events happening around the same time:
- The Plasma token sale
- The Pump.fun token launch
That's a lot of new toys pulling capital away from the broader crypto market. Not saying prices will crash, but hey—I'm not taking any levered longs.
If you're interested in $CRCL, Artemis has created a financial model to value Circle.
The model only considers the $USDC business. Others like CCTP bridge & Circle Payment Network are sidelined for now.
The model only focuses on the $USDC side of the business. Stuff like the CCTP bridge and Circle's broader payment network isn't included yet.
$USDC marketcap is already >$60B. It has grown ~92% YoY. And it's the #2 stablecoin issuer in the world at 26% market share.
In the bull case, the model is projecting $CRCL to reach ~37B market cap by 2028. They arrive at it by projecting a $1.2B profit in 2028 & applying a 30x PE multiple on it to reach the figure. That's a 5.43% annual return till 2028.
But according to their model, buying $CRCL today at $85.9/share means you'd lose money in both the base and bear scenarios.
If you want to geek out and run your own numbers, the Artemis model is open for you to explore.
Sponsored by Stacks
Stacks Endowment: New Catalyst for BTCfi
Stacks: Making Bitcoin Native to DeFi
Why the Next Phase of DeFi Might Be Built on Bitcoin
Stacks: Launching a Bitcoin Endowment to Power DeFi
Ever feel like your Bitcoin is just… sitting there? Like the world's strongest couch potato?
It's crypto's safest asset - but also the least productive. Wouldn't it be cool if it could actually work for you?
Stacks is giving BTC a serious wake-up call with something called the Stacks Endowment SIP.
Here's how it works: The SIP creates a community-controlled treasury funded by ongoing STX emissions (500M STX minted over 5 years) + seed funding from ecosystem contributors.
Think of it like a community-powered engine built to finally put Bitcoin to work in DeFi.
Here are the benefits:
- Deep liquidity pools
- Direct user & builder incentives
- Strategic Partnerships. Top exchanges, bridges and institutions.
- Major protocol upgrades. <10-second transaction finality and fee abstraction (pay gas directly in BTC)
It's about unlocking that massive potential, making your BTC productive without compromising what makes it Bitcoin.
Ready to see Bitcoin get off the couch?
Update
$PUMPS Token Sale: From Memes to Billions
Crypto's third-largest token sale is here. Many are calling it The Max Extraction event. Some think it's firepower for their grand ambition.
Let's unpack it.
Meet Pump.fun. It's THE MEMECOIN LAUNCHPAD. It's the most successful app of this cycle by combining great consumer-friendly UX & bonding curve. I'll let the numbers do the talking.
Initially, they'd used Raydium as the exchange for memecoins on Pump.fun. But in February, they created their own DEX: PumpSwap. It has been a massive success as well.
In early March, PumpSwap basically had ~0% of meme trading volume. But by last week, 30% of the meme volume went through PumpSwap.
Okay. It's an ultra-succesfful projects.
What's the big deal? Pump.fun is raising $1 billion via a token sale at $4B FDV. Even for crypto, that's a crazy high valuation. For context, the last rumored rounds were at $12M and $100M.
So yeah… this raise is massive, even by crypto standards.
$PUMP token will be sold to both public and private investors. Rumors suggest it'll be live in 2 weeks. There is no official information about the token, but there are too many rumors.
- Team/Investors will have a 12-month cliff.
- 25% of revenue will be used for buybacks. If Pump can continue attracting fees, this'll be great.
- 100% unlock on day one for the token sale buyers. This is very unusual, and the probability is quite low.
- Airdrop? Some rumors say no. Most expect around 5-10% of the token supply to be airdropped. Nobody expects it to be >30%.
- Instead of an airdrop, existing users might get whitelist access for the public sale.
- Instead of $SOL, they'll use $PUMP token as the base pair for memes. This strategy has worked for Virtuals, so it'll work for Pump as well.
This news was seen as bearish for $SOL. Since June 4th, it has fallen by ~10%. Firstly, using $PUMP as the base token will reduce demand for $SOL. It'll also set a bad precedent for other projects in the ecosystem.
Why was this controversial? Pump.fun team had already accumulated $700M in revenue. Now, they're raising an additional $1B at $4B FDV.
Ideally, they could've allocated a specific percentage, say 30%, for public sale. And instead of setting a high FDV, they could've let the market decide the price.
Why are they raising this much money? How are they going to spend it?
So many are saying this is just another extraction event in their long history of extraction.
But there are other explanations as well. Right now, they're getting a lot of competition on the memecoin front. Boop.fun with their new mechanism, Believe's Internet Capital Market, and more. This massive raise might be to enter a new vertical.
- They might create a new chain. Speculations range from a brand new L1 to L2 on Solana.
- Become some new grand "media platform". They might become a web3 version of streaming platforms like Twitch.
- A vertically integrated DeFi platform like Jupiter. Pump had started with just a bonding cure for the memecoin graduation. They've already launched a DEX. They might create more DeFi services that take advantage of their position.
At the end of the day, Pump.fun is still a memecoin launchpad. And a $4B valuation for that? Bit rich.
So yeah — I'm sitting this one out.
🚀 DeFi Catalysts
JokeRace introduced Vote & Earn contests. It allows users to vote on subjective topics and earn money by picking the winning option.
Berachain shipped the Bectra upgrade. It introduces smart accounts, on-demand validator exits, and simplified validator operations.
Infinify went live. It describes itself as the first onchain fractional reserve system. It takes liquidity risk to provide amplified yield for users.
Stable introduced itself as a new L1 backed by Bitfinex and USDT0. It'll have free peer-to-peer USDT transactions and USDT as the native gas token.
Pluralis Research has demonstrated that an LLM can be split and trained across consumer devices connected over the internet.
🪂 Airdrop Alpha
World Liberty Financial airdropped $4M USD1 directly to eligible wallets. Excluding some jurisdictions, every eligible WLFI holder received $47 USD1.
YieldNest launched $YND, its governance and utility token. Eligible users can claim their airdrop as well.
📰 Industry News
StarkNet released a post outlining three options for Ethereum to upgrade its execution layer. More research will be required to pick the optimal one.
Trump is apparently planning to launch a branded crypto wallet and trading application. This might bring more people to crypto.
Ethereum Foundation released its Treasury Policy. It includes the deployment of their capital to "Defipunk" protocols that follow the decentralization ideals.
Solana introduced Solana App Kit. It promises to enable developers to vibe code applications within ~2 hours using AI.
SEC clarified that Staking activities are not securities transactions. It'll be helpful in TradFi companies participating in staking.
🐦⬛ X Hits
- 2025 RWA Landscape
- Bittensor ecosystem map.
- A guide for using Farcaster.
- A formula to score narratives.
- a16z on how stablecoins became money
- HyperEVM & its ecosystem essentials.
😂 Meme
Until next time,
Edgy
Today's email was written by Edgy and Yayya.
DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT a financial advisor. This content is for education and information purposes only. Crypto and DeFi are risky and speculative. Please do your research before investing.
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