Gemini Shatters Wall Street Norms: 30% of IPO Shares Reserved for Retail Traders
Breaking the banker's monopoly—Gemini just flipped the script on traditional finance.
Retail Revolution in Action
Forget begging for scraps from institutional allocations. Gemini's handing 30% of its IPO directly to everyday traders—no middlemen, no favor-trading. Finally, a crypto exchange putting its money where its mouth is on decentralization.
Wall Street's Worst Nightmare
This move doesn’t just disrupt—it dismantles. By bypassing the usual gatekeepers, Gemini forces the old guard to either adapt or watch their influence crumble. IPO access, long hoarded by elites, now hits the masses. Talk about a power shift.
One cynical finance jab? Maybe the banks will finally need to find new fees to charge—since this cuts their favorite gravy train right off at the knees.
Gemini 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 program. It worked for a week.
The price flew above $70, then collapsed 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’s going even harder. And 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 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.
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