After Bullish rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange last week, becoming the second publicly listed cryptocurrency trading platform in the U.S., Gemini could no longer hold back, as this established U.S. trading platform, which has always emphasized 'compliance', began to compete for the position of the third listed company.
This time in the spotlight is a pair of twin brothers who have already been written into American entrepreneurship textbooks—Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. Over a decade ago, they made global headlines due to a lawsuit with Zuckerberg; ten years later, they became some of the earliest large-scale investors betting on Bitcoin amidst the crypto wave.
Now, Gemini's IPO is not just a symbol of the further 'compliance' of cryptocurrency CEX but also seems like the brothers fighting back in the new round of the U.S. capital market. Losing in social networks, gaining in the crypto wave.
Image source: Bloomberg.
IPO season, Gemini's sprint to go public.
According to the latest news, Gemini publicly submitted its registration statement (Form S-1) to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 15, 2025, intending to list on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol GEMI. Before this public submission, Gemini also submitted a confidential IPO application in February 2025.
According to documents submitted by Gemini: Gemini has chosen to go public through a traditional IPO, with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup as the lead underwriters, along with Morgan Stanley, Cantor Fitzgerald, and several other institutions participating in the underwriting team. However, the prospectus has not yet disclosed the price range and specific share size. The SEC still needs to approve it, and the listing date is undecided.
Renaissance Capital estimates that Gemini's IPO could raise about $400 million. Additionally, the company has secured a credit line of up to $75 million from Ripple, aimed at enhancing liquidity through the RLUSD stablecoin, but it has not yet been utilized.
It is noteworthy that Gemini is currently in a painful financial period. According to the S-1 document, for the six months ending June 2025, the company's revenue was $68.6 million, but its net loss was as high as $282.5 million, far exceeding the $41.4 million from the same period last year. Trading fees remain the primary source of income, accounting for about 66% of total revenue in the first half of 2025; additionally, Gemini also offers custody, staking, and stablecoin GUSD issuance services.
Moreover, this round of IPO activity is happening in the overall warming environment of the U.S. IPO market, especially as digital asset companies frequently appear. Circle (stablecoin issuer) and Bullish (cryptocurrency trading platform) completed their listings a few months ago and last week, respectively, and Coinbase was also included in the S&P 500 index, significantly increasing the market's recognition of compliant trading platforms.
Wall Street's most synchronized twins.
Compared to Gemini itself, the story of the two founders might be more interesting.
In the summer of 1981, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were born into a family of both academia and wealth. Their father, Howard, was a professor of actuarial science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and also an investor. The brothers grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, a tranquil town for the wealthy, where manicured lawns and yacht docks were part of the daily scenery.
A photo of the Winklevoss brothers with their father.
In their youth, the Winklevoss brothers were almost a 'perfect' template: excellent grades, handsome appearance, and boundless energy. They taught themselves programming and could tinker with web pages by the age of thirteen or fourteen, and they also took turns playing guitar and drums in a band. Their mother always said they were reflections of each other from birth: the same blue eyes, the same high cheekbones, and even their cries carried a certain synchronized rhythm.
Their subsequent youth trajectories also almost completely overlapped: undergraduate economics at Harvard, further studies at Oxford, and that rowing career recorded in sports history. At Harvard, they were the backbone of the varsity rowing team, known as the 'God Squad' by their teammates for their synchronized rowing strokes.
Winklevoss brothers rowing.
In 2008, they represented the U.S. in the doubles sculls event at the Beijing Olympics, finishing in sixth place. Although they missed out on a medal, the long-term synchronized breathing, muscle, and will training on the water laid the foundation for their future collaboration in entrepreneurship.
The entanglement with Zuckerberg.
In their junior year at Harvard, they launched a campus social networking site—HarvardConnection. This was a new idea they had long pondered: putting Harvard students' profiles, photos, and social relationships onto one website could perhaps create a brand new social way.
This idea later evolved into their entanglement with Zuckerberg.
The brothers were originally stars on the rowing team, skilled at pushing the oars into the water, but they were equally passionate about technology. However, they were not top programmers, so they brought in classmate Divya Narendra to help plan the website development. In this process, they found a sophomore to help write code—his name was Mark Zuckerberg.
The story's development was more dramatic than a novel. Initially, the brothers had high hopes for Zuckerberg, believing he could help complete the site's core functions. But a few weeks later, Zuckerberg's updates dwindled, and progress was slow to appear. He always had various excuses: heavy coursework, system bugs, needing more time. Until one day, the brothers discovered that Zuckerberg had quietly launched a site called TheFacebook. The interface style was very similar to their envisioned HarvardConnection, only the name and domain had changed.
Anger quickly turned into a lawsuit. In 2004, the brothers and Narendra sued Zuckerberg, accusing him of stealing their ideas and source code. The litigation process dragged on for a long time, during which Zuckerberg's Facebook expanded rapidly, becoming one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley.
This entanglement story was also brought to the screen by Hollywood in the movie (The Social Network).
In 2008, they settled for $65 million, which included a substantial amount of Facebook stock. At that moment, they became 'the ones who lost to Facebook'. But fate often enjoys a twist: a few years later, this money became their ticket into the world of cryptocurrency.
In 2012, they first heard about Bitcoin. At that time, few people truly understood the technology, but the brothers keenly sensed its potential. Part of the settlement money was used to purchase Bitcoin, accumulating a holding of up to 70,000 coins, about 1% of the total supply at the time. What was just a small bet then has now become a legend worth tens of billions of dollars.
Some jokingly say that if it weren't for the entanglement with Facebook, perhaps there would be no Gemini today.
In 2014, Gemini was born. The brothers decided not to be the 'ones who missed Facebook' again, but to firmly seize the direction in this new wave of technology. Unlike trading platforms that were growing wildly and operating in gray areas at the time, Gemini embraced regulation from the start, applying for a trust license from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and strictly aligning with Wall Street's compliance standards. The brothers even introduced a daily Bitcoin auction mechanism, mimicking NASDAQ-style trading rules, hoping to reassure institutional investors to enter the market.
The division of labor between the brothers also gradually became clear. Tyler leaned more towards internal affairs and strategy, excelling in management and meticulous execution; while Cameron acted as the spokesperson, more willing to appear in public and tell the story of Gemini. They were distinct in roles, almost instinctively harmonious.
Compared to Binance and OKX, Gemini did not have a 'frenzied' expansion; compared to Coinbase, Gemini lacks some of the Silicon Valley-style romanticism of engineers. Their label has always been 'compliance-oriented', always appearing in suits at congressional hearings and media events, emphasizing that cryptocurrency needs institutionalization and legal protection.
Today, according to Bloomberg's estimates, the brothers each own more than 5% of Gemini, with a personal net worth of $7.5 billion, and a total wealth of $15 billion. Their names are no longer just associated with the story of their grievances with Zuckerberg but are deeply tied to the rise of Bitcoin and the emergence of compliant trading platforms.
A past defeat was reversed by another technological wave.
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