Public Keys: Crypto IPOs Sizzle, Missing Gensler Texts Grizzle

Public Keys is a weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies.

Gemini’s IPO Pop

Crypto exchange Gemini hit a $4.4 billion valuation on its Nasdaq debut Friday. At the time of writing, the company’s shares—which trade under the GEMI ticker symbol—are hovering around $34. That’s a 22.6% gain from when the stock began trading.

Gemini was founded in 2014 and granted a BitLicense by the New York State Department of Financial Services the following year. The company raised $425 million through its IPO, according to Decrypt calculations based on regulatory filings. Reuters was first to report yesterday that the firm’s IPO was significantly oversubscribed.

But there’s been drama brewing between the company’s founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chair nominee Brian Quintenz.

The CFTC nominee shared screenshots of a July text thread with Tyler on X. The messages show that Quintenz was contacted about a complaint Gemini filed regarding alleged misconduct at the regulator.

Gemini paid $5 million to settle its CFTC lawsuit in January, just a few weeks before the trial was set to begin. But in June, the company’s lawyers filed a complaint alleging the CFTC was wrong to have gone after the exchange in the first place.

“I believe these texts make it clear 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 asked that my confirmation be paused for reasons other than what is reflected in these texts.”

There were a few people in the thread calling foul on his timing, especially given that his current firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has a large stake in Gemini’s direct competitor, Coinbase.

An Attractive Figure

Gemini is the most recent, but not the only crypto company to make its big public debut this week.

Crypto lender Figure began trading on the Nasdaq under the FIGR ticker Thursday, seeing shares jump 24%. The firm stepped into public trading with an even bigger, $5.3 billion valuation.

Its share price ahead of the closing bell on Friday sits around $33.46, about 33% above its $25 IPO price.

“Our IPO showed what’s possible when blockchain meets capital markets: speed, transparency, efficiency,” the company said Friday on X. “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.”

Figure CEO Michael Tannenbaum told Decrypt that the company is showing Wall Street how blockchains can be used to create more efficient markets for real-world assets, while also helping investors better grasp concepts like tokenization.

Tokenization—that is, taking real-world assets such as stocks and creating blockchain-based equivalents—has been getting a lot of buzz lately. According to a recent report in Bloomberg, Blackrock is considering tokenizing its ETFs. No, not just BUIDL, its flagship tokenized fund launched with Securitize in 2024. The scope for this move would be much broader—and bring trillions worth 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 get to opt in to having tokenized versions of their securities trade.

What Gensler Texts?

Crypto exchange Coinbase has claimed that the SEC has done “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 Thursday, alongside a link to the court filing. “We now have proof from the SEC’s own Inspector General.”

A report last week by the SEC’s Office of the Inspector General found that nearly a year of then-Chairman Gary Gensler’s text messages were permanently deleted between October 2022 and September 2023.

Coinbase has been pursuing internal SEC documents for a long time through the Freedom of Information Act and sued when the regulator denied its requests.

Other Keys

DAT worked: Newly minted digital asset treasury GameStop notched a Q2 loss in its earnings report—but not as bad as it might have been. The company noted its $500 million worth of Bitcoin increased in value to $528 million by the end of the quarter.

Land of the rising BTC: Japanese Bitcoin treasury Metaplanet wants to raise $1.45 billion to buy more BTC. In the announcement, the company reiterated its laser-eyed thesis by pointing to “elevated levels of national debt, prolonged real negative interest rates, and an ongoing depreciation of the yen.”