Winklevoss Twins Pull Off a $3.3 Billion IPO Heist… As Retail Traders Ignore Gemini’s Cooked Books

Cue the DJ Khaled voice: “Another one.”

Ladies and gentlemen, we have yet another successful IPO. The Winklevoss twins and their zombie of a crypto company went gangbusters in its debut yesterday. Of course, is anyone surprised? At this point, I’m officially declaring 2025 the Year of the IPO (for the umpteenth time), because I can’t remember the last one that crapped its Nasdaq pants.

Gemini Space Station couldn’t have picked a better name either, because the stock literally behaved like a shuttle launch… priced at $28, opened at $37, ripped to nearly $46, and even got halted for 10 minutes after volatility tripped the exchange’s circuit breakers. When trading resumed, the stock cooled off and still closed up 14% around $32. Not bad for day one.

This, of course, comes despite Gemini being an epic money pit on paper. The company lost $159 million in 2024 and another $283 million in just the first six months of 2025. And yet, investors couldn’t get enough. The IPO raised $425 million, valuing the business at roughly $3.3 billion, which puts it in the same ballpark as respectable mid-cap fintechs. The difference? Those fintechs at least pretend they can turn a profit, while Gemini is still trying not to trip over its own shoelaces.

(Source: 99 Bitcoins)

Which begs the logical question: why are investors ignoring the giant, flashing “UNPROFITABLE” sign? For some reason that no one’s been able to explain without saying “stonks go up”... IPOs in 2025 are pretty much invincible. Circle doubled. Bullish doubled. Figure Technologies popped 44% just last week. The average tech IPO this year has delivered a 36% day-one return. So clearly, traders see it as a given to make a profit. At this rate, I could probably take a company public that builds double-decker couches out of recycled cigarette butts (yes, straight out of The Lego Movie) and it would open 40% higher.

As for the Winklevii, you can say a lot about them (part-time Harvard rowbots, full-time Zuckerberg’s lawsuit fodder, and guys who probably still introduce themselves as “the first Bitcoin billionaires” at dinner parties). But you can’t deny they know how to stick to a narrative. On CNBC, just as their crypto company was making its Nasdaq debut (a business that literally lives and dies on Bitcoin) the twins confidently predicted BTC would hit $1 million within a decade. Classic Winklevoss move. 

These are the same guys who tried to launch a Bitcoin ETF back in 2013, got laughed out of the SEC’s offices, and still managed to spin their “crypto is the future” sermon into billions. Like them or not, they’ve become the industry’s ultimate hype men… always preaching the gospel of Bitcoin while cashing in on the collection plate.

All jokes aside, Gemini Space Station isn’t a fly-by-night token shop. The company has real infrastructure: $21 billion in assets on the platform, 10,000 institutions as clients, and a product suite that includes a stablecoin, institutional custody, and even a crypto rewards credit card. So from an operational standpoint, it’s not vaporware… it’s a functioning exchange with sticky customers. 

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

The issue is the P&L. Losses of $159 million last year and $283 million in just the first half of 2025 make the balance sheet look like a public toilet. In a normal market, that kind of red ink would tank an IPO before it left the runway. But this isn’t a normal market. In 2025, investors are chasing momentum, not earnings, and Gemini has plenty of momentum. Growth and hype are the only currencies that matter right now… and Gemini’s trading in both.

The real risk here isn’t hard to spot. IPO euphoria has a half-life, and once the confetti settles, the ugly math usually sneaks back onto the stage. Gemini Space Station might look like a clean win for the Winklevii right now, but give it a couple quarters and investors could be staring at the same losses and asking themselves if they basically paid premium prices for a crypto theme park. Today it’s “another one,” but tomorrow it could just as easily be “who’s left holding the bag?” Because in markets (as in physics) rockets eventually come back down.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.