This week, as tokenization heats up on Wall Street, Gemini and Figure have gone public with billion-dollar valuations.
“Public Keys,” a weekly roundup from , tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies.
Gemini’s IPO Sees a Jump
On Friday, crypto exchange Gemini’s Nasdaq debut gave it a $4.4 billion valuation. At the time of writing, the company’s shares, which trade under the GEMI ticker symbol, are hovering around $34. This is a 22.6% gain from when the stock began trading.
Founded in 2014, Gemini was granted a BitLicense by the New York State Department of Financial Services the following year. According to calculations based on regulatory filings, the company raised $425 million through its IPO. Reuters was the first to report yesterday that the firm’s IPO was significantly oversubscribed.
However, drama has been brewing between the company’s founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Brian Quintenz, the nominee for Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chair.
The CFTC nominee shared screenshots of a July text thread with Tyler on X. The messages show that Quintenz was contacted about a complaint that Gemini filed regarding alleged misconduct at the regulator.
In January, just a few weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin, a $5 million payment was made by Gemini to settle its CFTC lawsuit. However, in June, a complaint was filed by the company’s lawyers. It alleged that the CFTC was wrong to have gone after the exchange in the first place.
“I believe it is made clear by these texts what they were after from me, and what I refused to promise,” he wrote. “It’s my understanding that after this exchange, they contacted the President and requested that my confirmation be paused for reasons other than what is reflected in these texts.”
A few people in the thread called foul on his timing, especially given that his current firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has a large stake in Gemini’s direct competitor, Coinbase.
An Impressive Public Debut
Gemini is the most recent crypto company to make its big public debut this week, but it is not the only one.
On Thursday, shares for crypto lender Figure began trading on the Nasdaq under the FIGR ticker, seeing a 24% jump. The firm stepped into public trading with an even larger valuation of $5.3 billion.
By the closing bell on Friday, its share price was around $33.46, which is about 33% above its $25 IPO price.
On Friday, the company stated on X that its “IPO showed what’s possible when blockchain meets capital markets: speed, transparency, efficiency.” It added, “IPO day was a celebration of our people, partners, and the vision driving us forward, and we’re even more excited for what’s next.”
According to Figure CEO Michael Tannenbaum, the company is showing Wall Street how blockchains can be used to create more efficient markets for real-world assets. At the same time, it is also helping investors better understand concepts like tokenization.
Tokenization—taking real-world assets like stocks and creating blockchain-based equivalents—has been getting a lot of attention lately. According to a recent report in Bloomberg, Blackrock is considering tokenizing its ETFs, not just BUIDL, its flagship tokenized fund launched with Securitize in 2024. The scope for this move would be much broader and would bring trillions of dollars with it.
Even Nasdaq has expressed interest to the SEC in allowing tokenized stocks to trade on its exchanges. The company proposed that issuers would have the option to opt in to having tokenized versions of their securities trade.
The Missing Gensler Texts
Crypto exchange Coinbase has claimed that the SEC has caused “irreparable harm” by destroying documents from its Gary Gensler era.
“The Gensler SEC destroyed documents they were required to preserve and produce,” Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal wrote on X on Thursday, with a link to the court filing. He added that there is “now proof from the SEC’s own Inspector General.”
A report by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General last week found that nearly a year of former Chairman Gary Gensler’s text messages were permanently deleted between October 2022 and September 2023.
For a long time, internal SEC documents have been pursued by Coinbase through the Freedom of Information Act. The company then sued when its requests were denied by the regulator.
