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Gemini’s shares jumped 14% on Friday as the exchange operator raised $425 million in an IPO. The stock’s IPO price of $28 was about 32% below its opening price of $37.01 on the Nasdaq. The share price peaked at $45.89 at one point. At $32, the stock closed up 14 points, or 3%.

The New York-based company set its initial public offering (IPO) price late Thursday above the anticipated range of $24 to $26, which was set this week, and an initial range of $17 to $19. Before trading started, the company was valued at about $3.03 billion. By the end of July, Gemini, founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and primarily functioning as a cryptocurrency exchange, had over $21 billion in assets on its platform.

Gemini reported a net loss of $159 million in 2024 and a loss of $283 million in the first half of this year, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, who are among the first bitcoin billionaires and investors, believe that bitcoin is a better store of value than gold.  They applied to start the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund in 2013, over a decade before the first bitcoin ETFs were finally approved.

The application was denied by the Securities and Exchange Commission due to concerns about fraud and market manipulation, paving the way for future discussions of bitcoin ETFs. Even in its early days, when Wall Street shunned bitcoin because of its extreme volatility and anti-establishment roots, the Winklevoss brothers were vocal about the need for wise regulation to establish guidelines for the financial revolution driven by cryptocurrency.