Arthur Hayes Calls Crypto Company IPOs the New ICO Boom of 2017

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes commented on Circle's IPO, stating that the market is entering a new phase of hype. “We’ve gone full Circle — what a glorious day,” he wrote on X, playing on both the company's name and the phrase to go full circle (to return to where you started).

According to Hayes, the current market mirrors the ICO boom of 2017, but in a new form: a wave of crypto IPOs from 2025 to 2027. He predicts the cycle will culminate in a “blockbuster IPO à la EOS” from a company that will drain record amounts of capital from the market—only to see its stock crash post-listing.

In 2017, thousands of crypto projects raised funds via initial coin offerings (ICOs), often without regulatory oversight or functioning products. This contributed to the dramatic rise—and subsequent collapse—of the crypto market during that period.

The EOS project (now known as Vaulta) ran the largest ICO in history, raising $4 billion, and launched its own blockchain in 2018. After listing, its token price plummeted, and the platform failed to meet its promised level of develop