FalconX hits the IPO, will the first share of the crypto brokerage copy Circle or Coinbase?

,

2025, stablecoin giant Circle was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange at an issue price of $31 per share, significantly higher than the early estimate of $24 ~ $26. What's even more remarkable is that as of now, the price of CRCL has climbed to $214 after hours, and the market value has exceeded $48 billion, a cumulative increase of nearly 600% in just over ten days. At the same time, a new batch of crypto stocks such as SBET and SRM also performed strongly. Against

the backdrop of the continuous improvement of the regulatory environment in the United States and the acceleration of institutional funds, the trend of crypto companies "going to Wall Street" is accelerating in an all-round way. According to the main business positioning, exchanges, stablecoins, and mining have all been represented, and the crypto prime broker FalconX was revealed to be preparing a listing plan within the year. The $8 billion company, which serves global institutional investors, is trying to seize the window of time for this "institutionalization wave" and seize capital market opportunities.

From Silicon Valley, how does FalconX run out of the crypto prime brokerage route?

FalconX was born in Silicon Valley in 2018, a place that excels at translating tech narratives into capital myths. Co-founder Prabhakar Reddy has a strong background in cross-border financial infrastructure, and his early founding of OpenFX focused on technical services in the forex market, which also laid a solid foundation for FalconX's trading system.

Different from crypto exchanges for retail investors, FalconX has targeted institutional clients since its inception, clearly positioned as a "crypto prime broker", focusing on providing a full range of services for professional investors, and its business covers three core sectors:

• Aggregate liquidity and intelligent order routing from multiple exchanges to achieve efficient matching and cost optimization;

• Provide structured financing and crypto-asset mortgage services to meet the flexible financing needs of institutions;

• Expand asset management and derivatives strategy products to create a complete solution for institutional investment portfolios.

As of 2025, FalconX has set up global offices in seven places, including New York, London, Singapore, Silicon Valley, Bangalore, and Valletta, and has basically completed the initial construction of its institutional service network.

The FalconX team integrates the dual genes of traditional finance and technology, with core members from top companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, PayPal, Kraken, Affirm and Microsoft, with rigorous risk control capabilities and excellent technical execution.

In 2022, the company closed a $150 million funding round and its valuation jumped to $8 billion, backed by investors including GIC, Tiger Global, Accel, Lightspeed and other well-known institutional capital, adding weight to the brand image favored by its institutions.

Accelerating M&A expansion, FalconX's 2025

Entering 2025, FalconX has significantly accelerated the pace of business expansion, focusing on the three major sectors of derivatives market, institutional finance and asset management, and its strategic intent has become increasingly clear:

in January 2025, it acquired Arbelos Markets, a derivatives start-up, to further enhance its capabilities in structured product design and risk hedging;

In March 2025, it cooperated with StoneX to launch Solana futures products on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and completed the first block trade, while becoming the main liquidity provider of CME crypto derivatives;

In May 2025, partnered with Cantor Fitzgerald to complete the first Bitcoin-backed financing transaction, with plans to offer up to $2 billion in funding to institutional clients. During the same period, it established a strategic partnership with Standard Chartered, a global bank, to further open up the channel between traditional finance and the crypto market with the help of its banking and foreign exchange service capabilities;

In June 2025, it acquired a majority stake in asset management company Monarq Asset Management (formerly LedgerPrime, formerly part of the FTX ecosystem) to expand FalconX's product capabilities in the field of asset management and quantitative trading to reach customers.

Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, product launches and strategic partnerships, FalconX is gradually transforming from a single deal matchmaking "broker" role to a platform-based financial service provider covering multiple assets and multiple service modules. These moves not only enrich its business matrix, but also build a more convincing capital narrative for the upcoming IPO preparations.

Why go public at this time? Sources behind the IPO

informally approached investment banking advisors to assess the feasibility of an IPO and may submit a listing application within the year, according to sources sources behind the IPO.

Choosing to start preparations for listing at this moment is not a hasty move. The past few months have seen a series of landmark events in the crypto industry.

Circle successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, and its market capitalization soared to $48 billion in the first ten days of listing, far exceeding market expectations. This feat has greatly boosted investor confidence and quickly changed the capital market's risk pricing logic for crypto companies; Leading platforms such as Kraken, Gemini, and Bullish have also announced IPO preparation plans, and the capital window is gradually opening.

At the same time, there are subtle changes in the regulatory environment. The new U.S. administration has sent a more friendly signal, and the SEC has tended to be more moderate, providing crypto companies with more clear room to expect. The demand structure of institutional clients is also quietly changing, from a single transaction to structured financing, derivatives management and comprehensive risk allocation, and the position of prime brokers is becoming increasingly prominent.

With all these signals intertwined, FalconX seems to have found its own time. Not as followers, but as an attempt to be a forerunner in this cycle of institutionalization. For FalconX, the IPO is not only a fundraising opportunity, but also a key milestone in its rebranding and strategic leap: from a "high-growth startup" to a "global crypto financial infrastructure provider", and the recognition of the public market will be an important endorsement of its credibility.

Of course, the window is open, but it won't last long. The emotional dividends ignited by Circle are still continuing, and the pace of capital markets has always been fast-moving. If FalconX is unable to enter the market during this cycle, it may take years or even a full market cycle for the next window to open.

So far, FalconX has not formally engaged an investment bank to underwrite, which is the usual first step in the process of initiating the listing process, meaning that the IPO is still in the early stages of preparation and there is still a lot of uncertainty.

Potential Concerns: Organizational Restructuring and Wave of Executive

DeparturesIt is worth noting that while FalconX is expanding rapidly, it is also facing organizational management challenges.

In March 2025, the company was exposed to a mass exodus of senior executives, including more than a dozen employees including the head of Europe, the head of credit, the general counsel and the chief compliance officer. The company has not publicly responded to the rumours that the personnel changes involve layoffs and voluntary resignations.

In fast-growing companies, personnel changes are not uncommon. However, for a company seeking an IPO, the stability of the governance structure and the continuity of the senior management team are often seen by investors as important indicators of the company's maturity and risk management capabilities.

This also reminds the market that the test of an IPO is not only revenue growth and customer expansion, but also whether the company can demonstrate stable and sustainable "full-stack capabilities" in multiple dimensions such as capital, organization, personnel and compliance.

Summary: Wall Street is open, and

whether FalconX can successfully ring the NASDAQ bell at the start of the second half of the crypto prime brokerage still needs more official signals to be released. But what is certain is that a series of strategic moves have clearly outlined the outline of the future:

after Circle opened the window of confidence in the crypto IPO, FalconX is trying to enter the public eye as the "next child of the wave of crypto institutionalization". Its role is not only the valuation story of a certain company, but also a symbolic turning point for the entire crypto industry from the fringe to the mainstream.

Can it replicate Circle's capital miracle? Will it be able to avoid the valuation highs and price declines that Coinbase experienced in 2021? The answers to these questions may gradually emerge in its upcoming prospectus.

But one thing is certain: in this new cycle of capital, trust and institutional synergy, FalconX is no longer a bystander.