After Circle's Bumper Stock Market Listing, Is 2025 Going to Be the Year of Crypto IPO?

IPOs send strong signals.
Earning a place on a stock market index, which holds so much weight across the
traditional finance sector, evidences your position as a successful, mainstream
and compliant business. These are the signals crypto innovators want to send
this year, and they’ll turn to IPOs to do so. In fact, soon, I believe we’ll
see more crypto IPOs than ever before.

Circle Sets the Stage

We’re already seeing the
trend set in. Major stablecoin issuer Circle has already listed on the
NYSE recently, and others are gearing up to do the same. Ripple, Kraken and
Consensys are among those who could be next in line.

Historically, IPOs have
remained a far-off prospect for many crypto players. Regulatory barriers halted
progress for the coin issuers, exchanges and mining firms that keep the crypto
machine moving. They made taking the final leap toward traditional stock
markets far more difficult.

As a result, many of the
biggest industry names are absent from the most celebrated indexes. While
Coinbase took its place on the Nasdaq in 2021, it did so via a Direct Public
Offering and remains the only major crypto firm to have listed, until the latest listing of Circle.

Read more: Circle Shares Soar 235% on First Day of NYSE Trading

1/ Circle’s IPO is a milestone not just for one company but for the whole crypto application layer.

“Apps” like Circle are now out-earning the very blockchains they’re built on.

Let’s look at the top 20 revenue-generating crypto projects 👇 pic.twitter.com/O0CQKOWZM2

— Kai Wu (@ckaiwu) June 5, 2025

Regulation Is Easing Up

But all that is set to
change. We’re seeing a new, far more positive approach to digital assets sweep
across the States, and it’s smashing down the hurdles to IPO.

Regulatory bodies are easing
up on what has been, for many years, an intense and relentless pursuit of
digital asset firms. Trump has appointed Paul Atkins, who is known to look upon
cryptocurrencies favorably, as Chair of the SEC, and we have already seen
significant changes implemented at the agency.

For starters, it is now home
to the crypto task force – a working group hoping to drive forward crypto
regulation. The task force is speaking to industry figures to establish clearer
processes and classification guidelines so that firms can innovate within
transparent parameters.

That means they’ll be able to
grow with confidence – confidence that they can innovate without any blockers
or regulatory hurdles.

But it’s not just regulatory
clarity firms are benefitting from. Regulators are also backing off
pre-existing cases altogether.

Since the start of 2025, the
SEC has dropped a staggering number of cases, including one of its most
prominent lawsuits against Ripple. The case raged on for four years but has now been abandoned,
sending a strong message that the agency’s once-fierce glare has eased off.

This positive regulatory
environment is critical to crypto firms’ journeys toward the stock market. To
float in the US, firms must file their registration statement with the SEC. The fact that it now won’t come down unnecessarily
heavy-handedly on firms’ business models, risk factors and corporate governance
is crucial.

It doesn’t stop there: the
SEC’s change of heart has been mirrored by other government bodies, with the
Department of Justice choosing to disband its cryptocurrency crime unit. It all amounts to a regulatory reset that has
unfolded since Trump stepped back into the White House. Regardless of your
views on the President, there’s no doubt he has created a far more positive and
productive environment for the crypto sector.

And it’s all happening at the
perfect time. Over the last five years, crypto’s institutional adoption has
gained rapid momentum – and firms are in an even stronger position to list as a
result.

Institutions have Embraced Crypto

Once upon a time, digital
assets were the ugly duckling of the financial world. They were shunned by many
institutional investors who felt they were too much of an unknown, too risky
and volatile to bring into their portfolios. But, as of January 2025, 86% of
institutional investors had exposure to digital assets or planned to make
digital asset allocations later in the year.

From asset managers to hedge
funds and family offices, TradFi has slowly moved towards its digital
counterpart. This move has been driven by the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin
and Ether ETFs, which came through in 2024 and marked a pivotal moment for cryptocurrencies.
In their first year of trading, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded massive net inflows
of $36.2 billion – they have undoubtedly attracted some of the naysayers to the crypto market.

Read more: US President Trump’s Social Media Firm to Launch a Bitcoin ETF

With the entrance of
institutional investors, crypto firms have secured another vital piece of the
IPO puzzle. They need buy-in from these investors to float, and they now have
that in abundance.

The three pivotal IPO
components are finally in place: the need for crypto firms to send strong
compliance signals, a more favorable regulatory environment and institutional
investors’ approval.

The door to IPOs has been shut for far too long, but trust me when I say it’s about to be flung
open. We’ll see a crypto firm IPO rush in 2025 – Circle’s filing is just the
beginning.