Gemini is giving 30% of its IPO shares to retail traders

Retail investors are getting a shot at something Wall Street rarely hands them: nearly a third of a crypto IPO. Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, is handing out 30% of its IPO shares to everyday traders ahead of its debut this Friday, according to ￰0￱ company updated its filing on Tuesday, showing that shares will be made available on Robinhood, Webull, and ￰1￱ makes Gemini one of the few crypto firms to offer such a massive slice of its initial offering to non-institutional ￰2￱ originally planned to allocate just 10% to this group, but after a week of marketing, the company decided to triple that ￰3￱ the same time, Gemini also pulled in Nasdaq ￰4￱ a $50 million private placement, a sign that it’s using every tool it can to give this IPO ￰5￱ there’s a ￰6￱ grabbing shares through these platforms has to agree to anti-flipping rules that stop them from dumping their stock during the first ￰7￱ means no quick trades, even if the stock pops on day ￰8￱ raises allocation, ties in retail platforms Cameron and Tyler’s exchange is tapping into a strategy that worked for some companies, and wrecked others.

Robinhood, during its own IPO in 2021, gave 35% of shares to its customers through its IPO Access ￰9￱ worked for a ￰10￱ price flew above $70, then collapsed to under $7 within a ￰11￱ in 2025 did the stock rebound above $100, but only long-term holders saw that ￰12￱ kind of retail-first approach also echoes what Bullish, another crypto platform, did in ￰13￱ allocated 20% of its IPO to individuals and high-net-worth ￰14￱ opened at $68, up 84%, before falling to $52.62 by the middle of the week. Gemini’s going even ￰15￱ they’re betting that retail buyers, many of whom already use the platform, will bring stronger hands than hedge funds. “Would you rather have a shareholder base full of crypto enthusiasts or a bunch of hedge fund mercenaries who will short your stock the moment they get a whiff of bad news?” asked James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown ￰16￱ longtime crypto watchers are glad to see regular folks getting more access to IPOs, but there’s a feeling Gemini might be playing the game a ￰17￱ the same day it bumped retail’s share of the deal, it also jacked up the price range for the offering, raising it from $17–$19 to $24–$26 a share.

That’s not a small ￰18￱ it’s hard to ignore the timing. Still, Craig Stephens from Access IPOs said small investors might be safer grabbing shares at the offering price than chasing them later when the hype kicks in and prices possibly go wild on the open ￰19￱ Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes