Circle’s IPO pops, ARK backs up the truck

Circle’s explosive IPO signals a turning point in crypto. ARK bets big, Gemini follows, and stablecoins step into Wall Street’s spotlight. From policy shifts to programmable dollars, this is how internet money finally goes mainstream. Don’t miss what comes next.

On June 5, Circle Internet Financial (CRCL) didn’t just list — it detonated. The stablecoin issuer behind $32 billion worth of circulating USDC closed its first day of public trading up 168% from its $31 list price, putting its market cap north of $31 billion. It was the year’s most electric tech IPO. And Cathie Wood was first in line.

ARK Invest shoveled $373 million into the float, trimming long-time crypto positions like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Block to make room. A reshuffle with a message: the center of gravity in crypto is shifting — from exchanges and apps to the money itself.

But don’t mistake the pop for permanence. IPO debuts are often emotional pricing events. Expect a cooling-off period as the market re-rates Circle with less adrenaline and more spreadsheets. Even still, the message is loud: tokenized dollars just earned their ticker.

For the first time, a natively onchain treasury went through a highly visible public offering. The result: it brought programmable dollars onto the same scoreboard as blue chips. This is what “internet money goes mainstream” actually looks like.

The domino effect: Gemini files its S-1

Barely 24 hours after Circle’s champagne corks hit the floor, Gemini tapped the SEC with a confidential S-1. The timing is a tell: investors just watched a stablecoin printer become the year’s hottest IPO debut — Reddit included.

If Coinbase’s 2021 IPO kicked the door open, and Circle’s 2025 debut cemented a market, Gemini’s move draws a roadmap: exchanges are rebranding — not as regulatory risk vectors, but as next-gen fintechs with recurring revenue, banking-grade compliance, and sticky customer bases.

The market is reframing: from crypto-as-casino to crypto-as-financial-infrastructure. Over time, this changes the entire narrative around crypto and its potential. It also means new dynamics are emerging — tensions between crypto public market money and Open Money.

Principle	This week’s datapoint	Why it matters
Permissionless	NYSE traders swapping USDC proxy shares like any blue chip	Shatters the “crypto = gated offshore casino” narrative
Programmable	USDC already integrates with DeFi, payroll APIs, Shopify checkouts	Wall Street liquidity meets API-first design = new settlement layer
Transparent Reserves	Circle’s daily attestations now feed SEC filings	Sets a disclosure standard for future stablecoin IPOs

The policy tailwind

Meanwhile, public market listings aren’t the only thing quickly developing. We recently covered how the policy and regulatory structure is changing and what that might mean for new pro-crypto legislation.

Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego told CoinDesk that a new bipartisan draft stablecoin bill — separate from the House’s GENIUS Act — is gaining traction in the Senate. One of the key factors for bipartisan support is the addition of new consumer protection tweaks.

This draft, emerging from the Senate Banking Committee, marks the first time both parties have signaled alignment on core principles around custody, reserve transparency, and state-vs.-federal oversight.

If Circle’s IPO just proved stablecoin product-market fit (PMF), Congress is teeing up the legal counterpart: statutory PMF.

Why a stablecoin IPO matters

This moment is bigger than Circle. It’s a preview of the next financial interface.

Stablecoins—programmable, liquid, auditable — are becoming the onchain equivalent of PayPal. Not in structure, but in behavior. People will increasingly move money not by ACH or wire, but by transferring tokenized dollars that live inside APIs, apps, and automated contracts. Today that looks like payroll in USDC. Tomorrow it’s every e-commerce checkout, DAO treasury, or remittance rail.

Here’s why this matters to you:

Capital flows become code-native Just like crypto ETF inflows hint at momentum in equity markets, stablecoin issuance and usage now signal which ecosystems are winning. This becomes the financial metadata of the open economy.
Financial transparency
Circle’s S-1 set a bar: Daily attestations, reserve breakdowns, operational disclosures. Other stablecoins (and eventually central bank digital currencies or CBDCs) will need to match that standard or lose credibility.
New levers
Whether you're allocating capital, building software, or designing business models, stablecoins offer a programmable foundation layer. Not just payments, but programmable escrow, loyalty rewards, recurring payroll — all in a few lines of code.
The dollar’s reach extends beyond borders
With regulatory support, USDC becomes a stealthy form of dollar diplomacy: no military, no treaties — just better rails. Stablecoins turn financial access into an export product extending economic capabilities.

Circle's IPO wasn't just a liquidity event — it was a legitimacy event. It tells us the future of money won’t just be digital. It’ll be open, programmable, and composable.

Open Money Project update

I made a lot of progress on the Open Money project this week, although very little of it is public-facing...yet. I was starting to get lost in my own outline and losing steam on figuring out the story in the midst of all the daily posts.

While the previous structure made sense (at least to me) in terms of organizing major themes into sections, it was starting to feel less like a story and more like a report. So this week I spent a lot of time trying to build a narrative structure and figure out how to knit the posts together into something that hopefully resembles more of an (interesting) book format.

You can respond to this email with questions or comments. Or connect on X or BlueSky.

I hope to put a post together documenting progress so far and outlining the path ahead, to try and figure out what the future roadmap of the project looks like. When I started this project back in January, I thought I’d be closer to wrapping up by now. But in some ways, it feels like I’m just getting started.