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

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$103,299.14 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.

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