CRCL hit a new high, Circle executives and VC collectively sold too early 20 billion dollars

Author: Protos

Translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's note: Since its listing, Circle's stock price has continued to soar, with CRCL skyrocketing from an issue price of $29.30 to $300, making it one of the biggest winners in the intersection of Wall Street and the crypto community. However, in this stablecoin leader's equity feast, early executives and venture capitalists have instead become 'disappointed' by missing the main uptrend. Many of them chose to reduce their holdings on the day of the IPO, missing out on potential gains of billions of dollars in just two weeks. This not only reveals a serious misjudgment of market expectations, but also reflects the cognitive dislocation between the primary and secondary markets in the new era of crypto finance. When even the founders failed to predict the true value of their own stock, perhaps we should rethink: in this era full of narrative-driven and emotionally leveraged, who is the real smart money?

The original text is as follows:

Executives and venture capitalists who chose to sell their shares in the Circle (stock code: CRCL) IPO missed out on a price surge comparable to a rocket launch.

By June 6, 2025, these sellers who sold early missed out on potential profits of up to 19 billion dollars. Instead of calling it selling, it is more like 'losing by not buying'—their choices can be described as painful.

These executives and venture capitalists cashed out at a price of $29.30 per share, totaling about $270 million. But if they were willing to hold on for a few more weeks, the value of their shares would soar to billions of dollars.

Taking the Chief Product and Technology Officer of Circle as an example, he sold 300,000 shares of Class A common stock in the IPO at a price of $29.30 per share. If he had not sold these shares, as of last Friday's close, each share would have been worth $240.28. In other words, he personally lost approximately $63 million in potential earnings.

Circle's CFO also sold 200,000 shares at the same price in the IPO, missing out on potential earnings of about 42 million dollars.

Even co-founder Jeremy Allaire was not spared. He sold 1.58 million shares in the IPO, also at $29.30 per share. If he had chosen to hold at that time, he would have had a paper gain of as much as $3.33 billion today.

Circle VC missed out on billion-dollar level returns

In Circle's initial public offering (IPO), venture capital firms, executives, and other insiders collectively sold at least 9,226,727 shares of common stock at a price of $29.30 per share.

Although these stocks brought them a substantial cash-out of 2.7 billion US dollars, just two weeks later, the 'opportunity cost' of this transaction has already been staggering.

If they had chosen to continue holding these stocks at that time, they could have made an additional dollars now.

Objectively speaking, some venture capitalists only reduced their holdings in the IPO. For example, the well-known venture capital firm General Catalyst only sold about 10% of its CRCL shares. According to its latest Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the firm still holds over 20 million shares of stock.

Founder Jeremy Allaire's situation is similar, he currently holds over 17 million shares of stock and has options and restricted stock. Many other venture capital firms and company executives also retain a significant proportion of their initial investments.

However, even so, the decision to sell at $29.30, against the backdrop of CRCL's soaring price to $240.28 today, still seems quite awkward. While no one can predict the future, a forecasting error as high as 88% is undoubtedly a 'shocking misjudgment', and has already carved out its own place in financial history.