Is it 2021 all over again?
Circle (CRCL) debuted to wild upside action on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, its shares more than tripling from the IPO price of $31. The event was the culmination of a long journey for the USDC stablecoin issuer, which had been pursuing an IPO for several years.
For the crypto industry, it’s certainly a win — a sign of strong traditional investor demand and that under the Trump administration, crypto native firms really do have a path to going public.
But cryptocurrencies themselves weren’t enthused. Bitcoin BTC slid more than 2% to $102,800, its weakest level in about a month, while the CoinDesk 20 (an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization except for stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins) fell over 3%. Leading the selloff are tokens such as SOL, AVAX and AAVE, all lower by roughly 6%.
It’s too early to tell whether the downtrend will persist in the short, medium or long term, but for industry veterans, it’s hard not to see shades of another crypto IPO — that of Coinbase (COIN), which took place on April 14, 2021 and marked a then-epic top of $65,000 for bitcoin. Roughly two months following the COIN debut, bitcoin had plunged nearly 60% to about the $28,000 level.
A sharp autumn bounce in prices did have bitcoin again re-claiming that $65,000 level, but the selling quickly took hold once again. A brutal bear market ensued through late 2021 and throughout 2022, with bitcoin ultimately bottoming at around $15,000. Bitcoin wouldn’t reclaim a fresh record price until March 2024, nearly three years after the Coinbase IPO.
Read more: Bitcoin May Be Headed Towards a 2021-Like Double Top