Amber goes public on Nasdaq, over 10 companies queue to list, marking the inaugural year of crypto "IPOs"

Author: flowie, ChainCatcher

Recently, Amber Group's digital wealth management platform Amber Premium officially completed its merger with the U.S. publicly listed company iClick Interactive. The merged company has been renamed "Amber International Holding Limited" and began trading on Nasdaq yesterday under the new stock code "AMBR."

The closing price of AMBR yesterday was $11, with a total trading volume of $3.06 million and a total market capitalization of $960 million.

In addition to Amber Group, since the beginning of this year, the Bitcoin reward financial service company Fold Holdings (FLD) has also completed its listing on Nasdaq, and Circle plans to complete its IPO this year.

Several other crypto companies are also advancing their listing plans. Last week, Bloomberg reported that Gemini has secretly filed for an IPO and is collaborating with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup for this issuance. Meanwhile, the crypto exchange Kraken is actively preparing for an IPO in the first quarter of 2026.

The crypto-friendly environment following Trump's presidency is expected to make 2025 the "year of crypto IPOs."

Over $600 million raised in 8 years, Amber finally goes public

As early as October 2021, Amber Group's co-founder and CEO Michael Wu stated in an interview with the South China Morning Post that they were actively considering going public within the next two years, with the preferred location being the United States.

Although the actual listing time was slightly later than the earliest expectations, Amber Group has finally achieved its goal of completing a merger listing in the U.S.

The entity involved in the merger, Amber DWM, is the holding entity of Amber Premium, Amber Group's digital wealth management business. Amber Premium primarily provides asset management solutions for high-net-worth clients and institutions.

Before the merger, Amber DWM underwent asset restructuring, including the acquisition of 100% equity in its exchange platform WhaleFin Markets Limited. According to the merger agreement, shareholders of Amber DWM will hold approximately 90% of the merged company's shares and 97% of the voting rights.

Michael Wu, co-founder of Amber Group, will serve as the chairman of the board of the merged company Amber International, providing strategic direction. Another co-founder, Wayne Huo, has been appointed as CEO and director, responsible for the company's daily operations.

As a well-established crypto asset management company, Amber Group has built a large product matrix since 2017, with its core business primarily focused on providing customized digital wealth management services for high-net-worth individuals and institutions. This includes managing digital assets through quantitative trading and professional strategies, as well as market-making services and cryptocurrency derivatives trading services.

According to its official website, Amber Group's cumulative trading volume has reached $1 trillion, with over 2,000 institutional clients.

In terms of asset management scale and revenue, Amber Group has rarely disclosed specific financial data in the past two years. The latest publicly available data is from 2022, when Amber reported that its asset scale exceeded $5 billion, with revenue of $250 million in the first half of 2022.

The years 2020 to 2022 were also a period of rapid expansion for Amber Group. In addition to a significant increase in asset management scale, Amber Group completed at least four rounds of financing during this period, raising nearly $630 million. Investors included traditional investment institutions such as Temasek, Sequoia China, Tiger Global, and Tiger Brokers, as well as Web3 investment firms like Distributed Global, Pantera Capital, Paradigm, and Coinbase Ventures.

When it completed a $200 million Series B financing led by Temasek in 2022, its valuation had reached $3 billion.

However, following the collapse of FTX, the market entered a deep bear phase, and Amber Group also faced a significant adjustment period.

Amber Group had approximately $60 million frozen on the FTX platform. Although Amber stated that this amount only accounted for 10% of its total trading capital and did not have a significant impact, the market still developed trust issues regarding asset management platforms like Amber Group, with certain specific products facing noticeable "drawdowns" due to FTX's default.

Amber Group had to make strategic and organizational adjustments, reducing its workforce from a peak of about 1,100 to around 300 and suspending its metaverse project and C-end business.

Amber originally planned to continue expanding with a Series B+ round to raise $100 million at a $3 billion valuation, but due to the market crash and internal adjustments, it had to shift to a Series C round. Michael Wu admitted in an interview with Bloomberg that the Series C valuation would be lower than $3 billion but did not disclose specific figures.

Due to the market turmoil and the onset of strict regulations in the crypto space, along with the impact on Amber's own business, Amber Group's IPO plans were also delayed.

Now, with Trump's administration easing crypto regulations, the trend of integration between traditional finance and crypto finance presents a good window for Amber to go public.

By going public, Amber Group will have access to more capital and can align with compliance trends, attracting more institutional clients through higher standards of transparency and regulation, while also providing an exit channel for early investors.

According to a press release from Amber, after listing on Nasdaq, Amber International will expand in four areas, with compliance being a key focus. Amber will launch tokenized RWAs and institutional-level compliant investment products, collaborating with asset management companies, private banks, and regulated financial entities.

Over 10 companies lined up for IPO, CeFi leads the crypto IPO wave

After Trump's election, Wall Street institutions like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan began to pay attention to crypto market clients seeking IPO opportunities. ARK Invest has also stated that the Trump administration may reopen the IPO window for U.S. crypto companies.

In fact, since Trump's election, several crypto companies have gone public in the U.S. The SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) route has also become a favored and faster listing method for crypto companies.

The Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck completed its merger listing on December 11, 2024. So far this year, two crypto companies, Amber and Fold Holdings, have completed listings on U.S. stock markets.

Several leading crypto companies that have previously faced multiple listing setbacks are seizing the window of opportunity to advance their IPO plans.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 10 crypto companies are currently advancing their IPO plans, with the following updates:

• Kraken: According to Bloomberg's report last week, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is actively preparing for its IPO in the first quarter of 2026. Previously, Kraken's listing plans were hindered due to the Biden administration's strict regulations on the crypto industry.
• Gemini: According to multiple sources on Bloomberg and X platform, Gemini has secretly submitted an IPO application and is working with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to advance it, with the earliest possible listing in 2025. The company previously reached a $5 million settlement with the CFTC and announced the SEC's conclusion of its investigation, clearing some regulatory hurdles for the listing.
• Circle: Last January, Circle restarted its IPO process and is still awaiting regulatory review. Circle's IPO has faced many twists and turns; its plan to go public via SPAC in 2021 was canceled due to deteriorating market conditions. According to Polymarket's prediction market data, there is currently a 59% probability that Circle will complete its IPO in 2025.
• Bgin Blockchain: The crypto mining equipment manufacturer Bgin Blockchain applied for an IPO in February, expecting to raise $50 million.
• BitGo: According to Aggr News, BitGo is considering going public as early as the second half of 2025.
• Bullish Global: According to CoinGape and Bloomberg, Bullish Global (a crypto exchange backed by Peter Thiel and the parent company of CoinDesk) is collaborating with Jefferies to explore an IPO, planning to advance it within 2025. Its previous SPAC plan (in 2021) did not materialize.
• eToro: According to reports from Crypto Briefing and others, eToro has secretly submitted an IPO application in the U.S., targeting a valuation of over $5 billion, with plans managed by Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and UBS, expecting to list in New York in the second quarter of 2025.
• Ionic Digital: On October 21 last year, Ionic Digital announced the restart of its IPO plan. It had previously stated in November 2024 that it expected to become a publicly traded company in the first or second quarter of 2025, but the specific date remains uncertain.
• Blockchain.com: In October last year, CoinDesk reported that the company was "interviewing investment banks" for its IPO, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, indicating that it is still advancing its listing preparations, but the specific timeline is not yet determined.

Additionally, Bankless mentioned Digital Currency and Consensys as potential competitors for an IPO this year. Crypto asset management company Bitwise has stated that infrastructure provider Anchorage Digital, tokenization company Figure, and analytics service Chainalysis are also major candidates for upcoming listings.

From the crypto companies that have gone public or are planning IPOs, the current wave of crypto IPOs is still dominated by leading exchanges and CeFi asset management companies.