Crypto exchange Gemini has announced that retail investors will have a chance to participate in something Wall Street rarely offers them: a share of a crypto IPO, which is approximately one-third of the offering. The crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss is handing out 30% of its IPO shares to everyday traders as it prepares to make its debut this Friday, according to Bloomberg.
In its recent filing update, the company showed that shares will be made available on Robinhood, Webull, and Moomoo. This makes Gemini one of the few crypto firms to offer such a massive slice of its initial offering to non-institutional buyers. Gemini initially planned to allocate just 10% to them, but after a week of marketing, the company decided to triple it. At the same time, Gemini also pulled in Nasdaq Inc. through a $50 million private placement, a sign that it’s using every tool it can to give this IPO momentum.
Gemini increases retail allocation as it ties in retail platforms
Gemini is planning to use 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 program, with the move only working for a week. The price rose above $70, then dropped to under $7 within a year. Only in 2025 did the stock rebound above $100, but only long-term holders saw that comeback.
This kind of retail-first approach also echoes what Bullish, another crypto platform, did in August. Bullish allocated 20% of its IPO to individuals and high-net-worth clients. It opened at $68, up 84%, before falling to $52.62 by the middle of the week. Gemini is even planning to go harder, and they are betting that retail buyers, many of whom are users on 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 University. Some 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 bit.
On 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 move. And 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 market.
