Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, April 2nd, and today we are talking about crypto IPOs.

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breakdown pod. Well, after many years of trying, Circle is finally going public.

The Stablecoin issuer filed their prospectus with the SEC yesterday, setting them up to

IPO sometime later this year. The prospectus didn't include a target valuation or number of shares

to be offered, but we did get a ticker symbol, CRCL. In the document, CEO Jeremy Aller said, for Circle, becoming a publicly

traded corporation on the New York Stock Exchange is a continuation of our desire to operate with the

greatest transparency and accountability possible. Now, this move is a long time coming,

with Circle attempting to go public for basically the last four years. In 2021, they took all the

steps required to go public via SPAC.

That deal fell apart after the SEC dragged their feet and failed to approve the deal by the end of

2022. Circle started trying again at the end of last year, filing confidential draft documents

with the SEC to begin the IPO process. Now, one of the big questions will be how the company

is valued. The SPAC deal attached a $9 billion

valuation to the company. A lot has changed both in the public and the crypto market since then,

and recent reports suggest the company is more likely to come in between $4 and $5 billion.

The new prospectus also gives us a first look at the profitability of Circle. The company

brought in $1.6 billion in revenue last year, which was a 16%

...