🟢 As the Circle turns

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Seems like the Trump family’s not so pleased with the traditional banking system. 

After Donald Trump Jr. talked about his family being orange-pilled, Eric Trump said he’d love to see “some of the big banks go extinct” at Bitcoin 2025 yesterday. 

“Honestly, they deserve it,” he added. 

Don’t get me wrong — while I think we need to remain a bit tough and skeptical of the growing crypto empire that the Trump family is amassing (as we should for any folks in power), they seem to be pretty set on showing how bullish they are on crypto at these types of events. At least, that’s my attempt at an optimistic take today. 

But I’m with the anonymous lobbyist who spoke to Politico about the Trump family: “The way they’ve done this … it just doesn’t look good.”

Meanwhile:

• Bitcoin’s holding at $108,000 this morning. 

• Total stablecoin holders are up 3% in the past 30 days, per rwa.xyz, hitting 164 million.

• Total value locked on DeFi sits at $119 billion, a 21% increase over the past week per Blockworks Research.

🔄 Circling back

Let’s talk about Circle (again).

The stablecoin company is a highly anticipated IPO, and now that we know that BlackRock’s very interested, per a Bloomberg report, and we have an idea behind potential pricing, I wanted to revisit it. This one is an interesting hybrid of crypto and TradFi. 

On Tuesday, I wrote that the stablecoin issuer is really close to the finish line, but I hadn’t realized just how close until I caught up with Jay Woods, Chief Global Strategist at Freedom Capital Markets. 

I know Woods from my days as a reporter on Wall Street, and he’s quite familiar with the ins and outs of IPOs, having worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for many years. 

First of all, let’s address the rumors of a potential acquisition ahead of the IPO: Woods told me it’s “very rare” for that to happen at this stage. 

“We are at a point where the bankers have been named, the price has been set, and a timetable has been given. The timetable is for the week of June 2, so that's next week. Once you get this far along in the process, I can't think of anything off the top of my head … where a company has not made it to the finish line,” he said. 

Basically, the banking teams have done their due diligence, investors have been talked to, and everything is humming along. 

“So to me, unless somebody comes in with a ridiculous offer and wants to stop this from happening and buy them before they go public, it looks like they're a go. And we've got another, say, 10 trading days or less to figure it out,” Woods added. 

Generally speaking, you don’t see IPOs on Mondays or Tuesdays. In my experience, Thursday seems to be a popular pick for companies. 

While Woods wasn’t totally sure why Thursday seems to be such a hit, he did note that it gives the teams three days to prep for the IPO and then one full day of trading (at least) before the weekend. But that’s not to say we couldn’t also see Circle go public next Wednesday. 

We’ll know pretty quickly next week what the timeline will be, given that we get pricing the night before the stock opens for trading. So, we’ll get pricing Tuesday night if they aim for Wednesday, and Wednesday night if they choose Thursday.

I asked Woods for a read on the market conditions to give a better sense of how the IPO could fare, and he noted that the overall conditions are starting to get better, though they’re not necessarily ideal. But, hey, retail is definitely interested and so, clearly, are institutions. 

ICYMI: In that SEC filing from earlier this week, Circle noted that Cathie Wood’s ARK had expressed interest in purchasing up to $150 million in shares. 

What will be interesting to see is the appetite for the stock, especially amongst crypto folks. COIN is clearly a popular pick nowadays, but can CRCL join it? 

I guess what I’m asking is: Are you planning to buy up some shares post-IPO?

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• Circle froze nearly $60 million in USDC connected to the LIBRA memecoin scandal, according to Arkham. 

• The Department of Labor rescinded guidance discouraging digital assets in 401(k)s. They’re now taking a neutral approach. 

• Bybit was granted a MiCA license in Austria.

Did the cart come before the horse? 

There was a bit of an awkward encounter yesterday after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced that Telegram had signed a $300 million deal with Elon Musk’s xAI (which initially sent TON soaring). The deal would cement a one-year partnership between the two, and bring Grok (xAI’s chatbot) to Telegram users and integrate it into apps. 

And then gravity hit when Musk directly responded to Durov’s post, clarifying that “no deal has been signed.”

Oops. TON, understandably, faltered. 

Durov said that the two had agreed in principle, but it sounds like they hadn’t yet signed the dotted line. 

How’s that for a day in cryptoland?