By Pritam Biswas and Manya Saini
(Reuters) -Circle Internet on Wednesday priced its upsized U.S. initial public offering at $31 apiece, raising $1.05 billion, adding fresh momentum to a growing pipeline of late-stage cryptocurrency firms eyeing public markets.
Circle and its shareholders sold 34 million shares at $31 apiece, valuing the company, which issues the USDC stablecoin, at roughly $8 billion on a fully diluted basis. The IPO had been marketed in a range of $27 to $28 per share.
The company’s flotation would rank among the biggest of the year, following a period of market uncertainty sparked by the Trump administration’s shifting trade policies that prompted many firms to delay IPO plans.
Circle’s IPO, which will also be one of the biggest crypto listings since Coinbase Global’s stock market debut in 2021, marks an eventful year in the sector’s push toward traditional finance under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has promised lighter crypto regulations.
“The huge demand for Circle’s IPO is a boon for both the IPO market and cryptocurrency-linked listings,” Samuel Kerr, head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket, said.
There still seems to be a divide in the market, with institutional demand focused on stablecoins and other less-volatile crypto assets such as infrastructure or exchanges, rather than on more speculative single-cryptocurrency investments that aren’t tied to benchmarks like the U.S. dollar, Kerr added.
Founded in 2013, Circle is the issuer of USDC, which has a market capitalization of more than $61 billion and is the second-biggest stablecoin after Tether, according to crypto market tracker CoinGecko.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value by linking them to traditional currencies like the U.S. dollar. Besides USDC, Circle also issues the euro-denominated stablecoin EURC.
Circle will start trading on the NYSE under the symbol “CRCL” on Thursday.
J.P.Morgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are the lead underwriters for the offering.
(Reporting by Pritam Biswas and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
