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 Monday, September 15th, and today we are checking in on the last week's crypto IPOs. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes. We're going to bit.ly slash breakdown pod.

All right, friends, well, as we discussed last week, the figure in Gemini IPOs were really going to be interesting bellwethers to get a sense of where markets are when it comes to their appetite for

crypto. And in many ways, the Gemini IPO was a microcosm of the current state of the crypto market. Friday's debut was strong,

with Gemini pricing the IPO at $28, around 10% higher than the upper band of their estimate.

The company raised $425 million, so it was an unambiguous success for them. Early speculators had

the opportunity to do really well. About 30% of the IPO stock went to retail

investors through platforms like Robin Hood. The first 10 minutes of trading saw the stock soar to a high

of $45, pushing Gemini's market cap to $4.75 billion. The rest of the day was much less strong,

with the stock going pretty much down only. The stock closed at $32, only slightly higher than the

IPO price.

Figure markets had a similar story during their IPO on Thursday. The IPO priced at 25,

saw an initial pop to 37, and then trailed off to close Thursday at around 30. Day two saw

a slight revival and another pop at the open, but the stock still settled at $32 to close the week.

Now, obviously, neither result was bad for investors. Both companies raised a ton of cash, making it a successful week for them. But these results were definitely more subdued than the face-melting circle IPO in June. That stock was up almost 70% from its opening price across the first two trading days, and more than quadrupled the IPO price. Now, many argue that the IPO was mispriced, and that the investment banks that led the round should have been far more aggressive in their marks, but it was also true that the circle debut drew in a ton of speculative excess. It's much more difficult to make the case that speculation is still running super hot when Gemini is only up 15% from its IPO price. Malays also seems to be settling in for Bitcoin. Last week saw a bit of a run-up with Bitcoin moving from 110,000 to 116 by Friday night, however, momentum stalled out over the weekend and the prices started to reverse. There certainly hasn't been a big collapse or anything, but this isn't the kind of price action that suggests another run at all-time highs, at least in the short term. And if you're looking for explanations, you don't need to look all that far. This week will feature a Fed decision on Wednesday. Although the market is still pricing in 100% chance of a cut, there's always a hesitancy to fully commit to a position until the decision is made. It's also important to remember that we are right in the middle of September, which is historically

the worst month for Bitcoin. There are plenty of theories to why. In fact, if you go search this feed, I think I've done three or four shows over the years about this. There's anything from investment fund rebalancing to coming back and selling all the things that you held on to over the summer because you didn't want to push them into low liquidity. Whatever the case though, September is historically bad for Bitcoin, and so far it doesn't

look like we're going to break that trend. Now, while Gemini's IPO did not suggest that the bull market is back in full swing, there are reasons to think the next move could be higher. Gold is up more than 9% in the past month and continues to make new all-time highs. Matthew Sigel, the head of digital assets,

research at Van Eck, tweeted, Every Gold Rally sparks the same pattern. Bitcoin breaks out bigger.

The S&P 500 is also grinding higher week after week. There was a brief scare around AI

CAPEX earlier in the month, but the market seems to have sloughed that narrative off.

Capital flows noted that labor market weakness also doesn't seem to be impacting

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