Plus: Solana is pumping

GM. Blender noise = on-chain activity confirmed.

Here's today's juice:

📝 New crypto IPO filings.

🍍 Solana check.

🍋 The best hardware wallets of 2025, new Satoshi movie + more

📝 New crypto IPO filings

Sure, the data above doesn't scream "crypto's thriving."

But zoom out, and you'll see that we're actually in quite a sweet spot - the bull market's still on, institutions no longer take crypto as a joke, and regulators have started making the rules feel less like hieroglyphs.

And for crypto companies, this combo means they gotta rethink how they grow.

Right now, most of 'em are still private. That means they're stuck with venture capital or token sales to fund their growth.

Both options suck in their own ways - VCs are picky and expensive, while token sales are a gamble that depends on whether the market is feeling good that day.

Public markets, on the other hand, offer something they can’t get anywhere else: steady access to massive amounts of capital, plus the kind of mainstream credibility that venture funding just can't buy.

That's why IPOs are kinda having a moment rn.

And the results are wild:

👉 Circle (the issuer of USDC) went public earlier this year. Their stock more than doubled on the first day, making it the biggest crypto IPO since Coinbase.

👉 Bullish (a crypto exchange) IPO'd last month. Shares opened above $90, increased to around $118, then settled at $68 - still 84% higher than the IPO price.

Crazy numbers.

And now, we've got two more companies hoppin' on the IPO train.

“Oh my goshies oh my goshies!1!! Who??” - you maybe.

Ay, chill, you don’t have to guess. I gotchu 😏

1/ Gemini

Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker GEMI.

They wanna sell 16.67M shares at $17 - $19, which could raise up to $317M and value the company at ~$2.22B.

And they've got some serious support - Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Cantor are all lead bookrunners.

Translation: these are the banks in charge of organizing the IPO and finding investors to buy the shares - so, Gemini's kicking things off with Wall Street's A-team.

2/ Figure Technology Solutions

The blockchain-focused lender Figure Technology Solutions is getting in on the action as well.

Just like Gemini, it’s heading to Nasdaq - under the ticker FIGR.

The plan is to sell 21.5M shares at $18 - $20, which could raise about $526M and value the company near $4.3B.

The IPO's being handled by Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Jefferies.

Now, what’s in it for you, the everyday crypto investor, from all this? A few things 👇

1️⃣ More legitimacy

A listing on Nasdaq is basically TradFi giving crypto companies a 👍

That builds trust with institutions, which eventually means more money going into the crypto ecosystem - including the coins in your wallet.

2️⃣ New ways for normies to get crypto exposure

Not everyone wants to deal with private keys, hardware wallets, or gas fees. IPOs let regular stock investors buy into the industry without touching actual crypto.

More money coming in from different angles is good for everyone.

Basically, IPOs don't pump your coins directly, but they make crypto look way more professional to the outside world.

And in the long run, that respectability should help your portfolio 😉

🥝 Memecoin harvest

These tokens went vertical for reasons we’ll never understand 🤷

Data as of 06:35 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🍍 Market flavor today

If we zoom back in, nothing life-changing happened today, but peek at the price charts and you'll notice Solana outperforming the other major cryptos.

It's now trading above $211.

And why's it suddenly the cool kid on the block?

1/ The Alpenglow upgrade got approved

Solana validators passed it with 98% support.

Yay!.. 😃 ... 🙂 ...

Oh, yeah, I'm the one explaining things here, sorry - the Alpenglow update's gonna reduce transaction times from 12.8 seconds down to 150 milliseconds.

To put that in perspective, that's about as quick as a Google search - pretty neat for a blockchain that's already known for being fast.

2/ ETF hopes

Analysts now estimate a 95% chance that spot Solana ETFs will get approved by October 2025.

Plus, companies like VanEck and Franklin Templeton are already updating their filings to include staking features, which would let ETF holders earn extra rewards on their Solana exposure.

This could unlock massive institutional demand!

So, up only?

Ummm... 😬

According to Santiment, we're seeing what's called a bearish divergence: the price is increasing, but the underlying blockchain activity (transaction volume, active users, network usage, etc.) is actually weakening.

Think of price as the hype and network activity as the actual usage - and in a healthy rally, both should be rising together.

However, in this case, price is going up but usage is going down, which suggests the increase is driven more by speculation rather than genuine adoption.

And whale data reinforces this warning. They've been transferring large amounts of SOL to exchanges recently, which typically indicates preparation for selling.

Plus, 96%+ of all Solana holders are currently profitable at these price levels.

Sounds good, right? But when nearly all investors are in profit, many become tempted to cash out = selling pressure.

So, overall, prolly don't go crazy go stupid with your risk management - and here are some key price levels you can watch:

👉 If SOL breaks above resistance around $205 - $207, traders are targeting $270 to $280.

👉 On the downside, a break below $196 would likely accelerate losses toward $190 - $191.

👉 On the even lower downside, a drop under $175 would mean a full correction pattern similar to March 2025, when Solana fell from $179 to $105.

🍋 News drops you can't miss

👛 Thinking about cold storage? Our guide to the best hardware wallets of 2025 has you covered!

🗣️ The SEC and CFTC put out a new statement on how licensed exchanges can offer spot crypto trading. The goal is to make the rules clearer for national exchanges, contract markets, and certain foreign platforms.

🍿 Looks like Satoshi's getting another movie! Killing Satoshi, starring Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson, will tell a fictional story about a group trying to stop the public from discovering who created Bitcoin.

💰 A new report says Ukraine has likely lost over $10B from stolen crypto and unpaid taxes. It adds that they could get some of that money back if they build a proper system to regulate digital assets.

😬 A vulnerability let some attacker steal about $2.4M in stablecoins from the Bunni DEX. The platform had to pause its smart contracts right after.

🍌 Juicy memes