Gemini Stock Down 80% From IPO, Takeover Talk Returns — SkimNews
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- Gemini (GEMI) has fallen about 80% from its post-IPO peak, cutting its market cap from roughly $4 billion to $753 million as trading volume, revenue, and platform assets have declined.
- Gemini's second-quarter exchange revenue fell 38% year-over-year to $12.5 million, while spot trading volume dropped 66% to $3.8 billion and assets on the platform shrank from $18.2 billion to $8.4 billion.
- ARK Invest's Lorenzo Valente publicly proposed on X that Hyperliquid acquire Gemini as a regulated U.S. gateway for perpetual futures and prediction markets, citing the Winklevoss twins' concentrated voting control as a deal-simplifier.
- Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss control 94.5% of Gemini's voting power, meaning any sale effectively requires their approval and making a hostile takeover virtually impossible.
- A venture capital investor told CoinDesk that Gemini's exchange technology offers limited differentiation from rivals, but its regulatory licenses — costly and time-consuming to replicate — could be the real draw for buyers.
- The story fits a broader crypto M&A pattern in which acquirers pay for regulatory infrastructure rather than trading volume, citing Keyrock's July purchase of BlockFills' trading assets, Ondo's exploration of a deal worth up to $500 million, and pending transactions involving LMAX and B2C2.
Why it matters: At $753 million, Gemini is now cheap enough that a strategic buyer could acquire its U.S. regulatory licenses, custody infrastructure, and customer base for less than the cost of building them — but the Winklevoss twins' 94.5% voting block means any deal hinges entirely on whether two founders want to sell.
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