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PTSD-Afflicted Crypto Investors Hit the Sell Button After Circle's Euphoric IPO

Coinbase's April 2021 debut marked what was then an epic price top for bitcoin.

Updated Jun 5, 2025, 6:27 p.m. Published Jun 5, 2025, 6:26 p.m.
PTSD
Shades of April 2021 for crypto investors? (Adrian Swancar/Unsplash)

What to know:

  • Circle's IPO on the NYSE saw its shares more than triple from the initial price of $31.
  • Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, however, experienced significant declines.
  • The market reaction to Circle's IPO draws parallels to Coinbase's 2021 IPO, which preceded a major downturn in crypto prices.

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.

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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 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

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Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

GP Basic Image

Что нужно знать:

  • As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
  • GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
  • Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

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LUNC Surges Over 160% in a Week as Do Kwon Sentencing and Token Burns Draw Traders

(Midjourney/CoinDesk)

The rally is driven by speculation that a final verdict could bring clarity to the project, as well as technical factors like token burns.

Что нужно знать:

  • Terra Classic (LUNC) surged 74% to $0.0000072, up 160% in the past week, on exploding trading volume, ahead of Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon's sentencing on Dec. 11.
  • The rally is driven by speculation that a final verdict could bring clarity to the project, as well as technical factors like token burns, with 849 million LUNC destroyed in the past week.
  • The token's momentum is also fueled by Binance's pause on LUNC withdrawals ahead of the Terra Chain's v2.18 upgrade, which aims to improve network stability, despite the token remaining volatile.