Crypto exchange Gemini lifted the price range for its initial public offering to $24 to $26 per share, setting up a debut that could value the company at about $3.2 billion, according to a filing this week.

The New York-based exchange, run by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, previously aimed for a range of $17 to $19. The share count remains unchanged at 16.7 million.

At the top end, Gemini would raise roughly $435 million, up from about $317 million under its earlier goal.

Nasdaq partnership

Nasdaq has agreed to invest $50 million in the IPO, highlighting institutional backing for the crypto exchange as it prepares to go public under the ticker GEMI.

The partnership is seen as a vote of confidence in Gemini’s long-term prospects and a signal of Wall Street’s growing acceptance of digital asset platforms.

The IPO comes amid a flurry of fintech listings and renewed appetite for digital-asset companies. However, investor enthusiasm will hinge on Gemini’s ability to stabilize its finances while navigating an evolving regulatory environment.

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CFTC nominee allegations

The IPO is also taking place against the backdrop of fresh regulatory controversy after President Donald Trump’s CFTC chair nominee Brian Quintenz alleged that Tyler Winklevoss attempted to sway his confirmation after failing to initiate a review of Gemini’s long-running dispute with the agency.

Quintenz released private text messages showing Winklevoss sharing Gemini’s complaint against the CFTC Inspector General, which accused the regulator of pursuing unfair enforcement actions.

Quintenz said he refused to promise favorable treatment, committing only to address the matter “fully and fairly” if confirmed. In the messages, Winklevoss expressed frustration over what he described as years of selective enforcement and urged Quintenz to align with Trump’s push to reform regulatory oversight.

The disclosure, made just days before Gemini’s market debut, highlights the company’s high stakes as it seeks to convince investors and regulators of its stability.

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Crypto Journalist

Amin Ayan

Crypto Journalist

Amin Ayan

About Author

Amin Ayan is a crypto journalist with over four years of experience in the industry. He has contributed to leading publications such as Cryptonews, Investing.com, 99Bitcoins, and 24/7 Wall St. He has…

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September 4, 2025

Ethereum-focused firm Etherealize has secured $40 million in fresh funding as it ramps up efforts to bring the second-largest cryptocurrency to Wall Street’s doorstep.

The raise, led by Electric Capital and Paradigm, aims to deepen institutional understanding of Ethereum and accelerate its adoption across traditional finance.

The funding round arrives during a pivotal week for Ethereum, with public firms collectively adding over $1.2 billion worth of Ether (ETH) to their treasuries, a surge that underscores growing institutional appetite for the asset.

Etherealize Aims to Bridge Ethereum and Wall Street

Etherealize, launched in January with backing from the Ethereum Foundation and co-founder Vitalik Buterin, is designed to bridge the gap between Ethereum’s complex ecosystem and the financial world’s demand for clarity, tools, and regulation-ready infrastructure.

Co-founder Grant Hummer previously noted that despite Ethereum’s presence in crypto ETFs, many institutions still lack the fundamental knowledge needed to engage meaningfully with ETH.

The $40 million will fund new tools and platforms tailored to institutional workflows. Etherealize plans to build infrastructure for private trading and settlement of tokenized assets, including a settlement platform for tokenized bonds and other fixed income products.

The firm is positioning itself at the intersection of crypto-native innovation and enterprise-level finance, hoping to deliver scalable solutions for firms seeking exposure to Ethereum’s capabilities.

“Over the past decade, Ethereum has gone from an experiment to the world’s most battle-tested, open financial network,” said co-founder Danny Ryan, adding that the new capital will help “upgrade institutional finance to modern, safer, globally accessible rails.”

The raise comes as Ethereum sees renewed momentum among public companies.

The Ether Machine, a crypto treasury firm planning a public listing, led this week’s accumulation with a 150,000 ETH buy, valued at $654 million.

Meanwhile, BitMine Immersion Technologies, Ethereum’s largest corporate holder, added another $65 million in ETH on Wednesday alone, per data from Arkham.

Other firms followed suit. Sharplink Gaming and Yunfeng Financial disclosed ETH purchases worth $176 million and $44 million, respectively.

Joseph Lubin Predicts 100x ETH Surge

Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin believes ETH could rally 100x or more over time, calling it Wall Street’s future infrastructure as TradFi shifts toward decentralized finance.

In an X post, Lubin said Ethereum will replace many siloed systems at institutions like JPMorgan and become the backbone for financial services, staking, and smart contract execution.

Backing the bullish stance of Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, Lubin stated he’s “100% aligned” with Lee’s view that Ethereum could flip Bitcoin in network value.

He compared the moment to 1971 when the U.S. dollar left the gold standard, signaling a tectonic shift in financial architecture led by Ethereum.

Likewise, Lee has predicted that Ethereum will rally in the near term to $5,500, with an ambitious year-end target of $12,000.

During his August 26 guest appearance on the Amitis Investing program, Lee disclosed that institutional Wall Street sentiment toward Ethereum has shifted dramatically following the U.S. Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Stablecoin legislation.

Lee emphasized that Ethereum is the foundational blockchain infrastructure for traditional finance (TradFi), currently supporting over $145 billion in stablecoin supply.

Ethereum advocacy firm Etherealize has closed a $40 million funding round to help it pitch the blockchain to Wall Street in a week that’s already seen public firms add over $1.2 billion worth of Ether to their treasuries. 

Etherealize said on Wednesday that the crypto-focused venture firms Electric Capital and Paradigm led the round, which it would use to “continue driving institutional adoption of Ethereum.”

The company launched in January with funding from the Ethereum Foundation and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to educate institutions on the blockchain and the Ether (ETH) token.

Wall Street has yet to embrace ETH as deeply as it has Bitcoin (BTC) when comparing the trading volumes and inflows to related exchange-traded funds.

Etherealize co-founder Grant Hummer said in January that amid the ETF launches, he noticed institutions lacked education on ETH, which the company wanted to address.

Etherealize to use funds for institutional tools 

Etherealize said the $40 million would be put toward developing crypto-based financial tools aimed at institutions.

The firm wants to build infrastructure for privately trading and settling tokenized assets, a settlement platform geared to “institutional tokenization workflows,” and applications aimed at markets for tokenized fixed income products, such as tokenized bonds.

“Over the past decade, Ethereum has gone from an experiment to the world’s most battle-tested, open financial network,” said Etherealize co-founder Danny Ryan, adding the raise would help upgrade “institutional finance to modern, safer, globally accessible rails.”

Public firms add $1.26 billion worth of ETH this week

Etherealize’s raise comes after public firms globally have added $1.2 billion worth of ETH to their holdings so far this week, according to data from the website Strategic ETH Reserve.

The Ether Machine, a so-called crypto treasury company that is planning to go public soon, made the week’s largest addition with a 150,000 ETH raise on Tuesday, valued at $654 million.

The same day, the largest ETH holding firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, said it scooped up over 150,000 ETH over the previous week, with data from Arkham showing it bought an additional $65 million worth on Wednesday.

Related: Ether exchange reserves fall to 3-year low as ETFs, corporate treasuries soak up supply 

Sharplink Gaming and the Hong Kong-listed Yunfeng Financial announced they bought more ETH on Tuesday, making respective purchases worth $176 million and $44 million.

ETH at nearly 50% odds of $6,000 this year 

Nick Forster, the founder of crypto options platform Derive, said in a note on Wednesday that a possible Federal Reserve rate cut this month and the ETH buys by public companies have set it up “for explosive potential heading into Q4.”

He said ETH-buying firms now hold nearly 4% of the token supply, and a rate cut could see such companies “holding 6-10% of ETH’s supply by year-end, positioning them as a major force behind ETH’s price action.”

Forster predicted there was a 44% chance that ETH reaches $6,000 by the end of the year, and gave 30% odds of it hitting that price by the end of October.

Ether is currently trading for just under $4,400, up 1.8% on the day, but it has fallen 11.5% since its peak of around $4,950 on Aug. 24.

Trade Secrets: Ether could ‘rip like 2021’ as SOL traders brace for 10% drop 

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/etherealize-raises-40m-to-market-ethereum-firms-add-1-2b-this-week/feed/ 0 56683 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-neutral-ethereum-strengthening-divergence-in-flow-data-raises-eyebrows/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-neutral-ethereum-strengthening-divergence-in-flow-data-raises-eyebrows/#respond Fri, 22 Aug 2025 20:51:00 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-neutral-ethereum-strengthening-divergence-in-flow-data-raises-eyebrows/

A massive spike in brute-force attacks targeted Fortinet SSL VPNs earlier this month, followed by a switch to FortiManager, marked a deliberate shift in targeting that has historically preceded new vulnerability disclosures.

The campaign, detected by threat monitoring platform GreyNoise, manifested in two waves, on August 3 and August 5, with the second wave pivoting to FortiManager targeting with a different TCP signature.

As GreyNoise previously reported, such spikes in deliberate scanning and brute-forcing precede the disclosure of new security vulnerabilities 80% of the time.

Often, such scans aim at enumerating exposed endpoints, evaluating their significance, and estimating their exploitation potential, with actual attack waves following shortly after.

“New research shows spikes like this often precede the disclosure of new vulnerabilities affecting the same vendor — most within six weeks,” warned GreyNoise.

“In fact, GreyNoise found that spikes in activity triggering this exact tag are significantly correlated with future disclosed vulnerabilities in Fortinet products.”

Due to this, defenders shouldn’t dismiss those spikes in activity as failed attempts to exploit old, patched flaws, but rather treat them as potential precursors to zero-day disclosure and strengthen security measures to block them.

The Fortinet brute-force attacks

On August 3, 2025, GreyNoise recorded a spike in brute-forcing attempts targeting Fortinet SSL VPN as part of a steady activity it has been monitoring since earlier.

JA4+ fingerprint analysis, a network fingerprinting method for identifying and classifying encrypted traffic, linked the spike to June activity originating from a FortiGate device on a residential IP address associated with Pilot Fiber Inc.

“This overlap doesn’t confirm attribution, but it suggests possible reuse of tooling or network environments,” commented GreyNoise in its bulletin.

Two days later, on August 5, a new brute-force campaign from the same attacker emerged, which switched targeting from FortiOS SSL VPN endpoints to FortiManager’s FGFM service.

“While the August 3 traffic has targeted the FortiOS profile, traffic fingerprinted with TCP and client signatures — a meta signature — from August 5 onward was not hitting FortiOS,” explained GreyNoise.

“Instead, it was consistently targeting our FortiManager – FGFM profile albeit still triggering our Fortinet SSL VPN Bruteforcer tag.”

This shift suggested that either the same attackers or the same toolset/infrastructure moved from trying to brute-force VPN logins to trying to brute-force FortiManager access.

The IP addresses associated with this activity, and which should be placed on blocklists, are:

• 31.206.51.194
• 23.120.100.230
• 96.67.212.83
• 104.129.137.162
• 118.97.151.34
• 180.254.147.16
• 20.207.197.237
• 180.254.155.227
• 185.77.225.174
• 45.227.254.113

GreyNoise notes that the tracked malicious activity is evolving with time and is associated with a specific origin cluster that most likely performs adaptive testing.

In general, this activity is unlikely to be researcher scans, which are typically broader in scope and limited in rate, and wouldn’t involve credential brute-forcing, which is seen as an apparent intrusion attempt.

Hence, defenders should block the listed IPs, increase login protection on Fortinet devices, and harden external access where possible, restricting access only to trusted IP ranges and VPNs.

Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

Bitcoin staged a sharp recovery over the past week, rebounding from a dip below $114,000 to trade near $121,000, in what Glassnode described in a recent report as a shift from “seller exhaustion to a strong rebound near recent ATHs.”

The rally, however, came without a surge in spot market participation.

Glassnode data shows spot trading volumes fell 22% to $5.7 billion, close to their statistical low band, suggesting the rebound has been driven more by positioning shifts than deep conviction buying. The Spot Cumulative Volume Delta flipped 94% toward buy pressure, a sign that aggressive selling has been replaced by renewed demand, but not yet across a broad base of traders.

On the derivatives side, leveraged traders re-engaged aggressively, Glassnode detailed in its report.

Perpetual Cumulative Volume Delta, a measure of the buy-sell pressure in perps, jumped 88%, funding rates remained elevated, and options open interest climbed 6.7% to $42.4 billion. Yet, volatility pricing collapsed by almost a third, indicating a degree of complacency that has historically preceded large market moves.

ETF flows offered some relief, with U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETF outflows halving to $311 million from $686 million the prior week. Even so, ETF trade volume fell 27.7% to $13.7 billion, keeping activity near its low band.

QCP Capital framed the weekend surge, which briefly pushed BTC above $122,000, as a function of thin order books and a broader risk-on shift in global markets.

“Crypto staged an impressive comeback over the weekend during thin, low-liquidity trading hours,” the Singapore-based trading firm wrote, noting that the bounce aligned with a rebound in U.S. equities and growing expectations for a September Fed rate cut.

While on-chain activity improved, active addresses jumped 8.4% to 793,000, and fee volume rose 10%. Glassnode cautioned that elevated profitability levels could quickly turn into selling pressure if sentiment shifts. With 94.1% of supply in profit and the realized profit-to-loss ratio climbing to 1.9, the market may be nearing a point where profit-taking accelerates.

The combination of thin liquidity, bullish derivatives positioning, and macro-driven optimism leaves Bitcoin primed for volatile moves as it approaches all-time highs, with the next test likely coming from Tuesday’s U.S. CPI release.

Polymarket traders lean toward a modest uptick in line with consensus that would likely keep BTC consolidating, with hotter prints posing a short-term headwind by delaying Fed cuts and softer readings offering a potential breakout catalyst if ETF flows and spot activity strengthen.

Market Movers

BTC: Bitcoin is trading at $118k as traders pull back and position themselves for the possibility that Tuesday’s CPI report might break BTC’s momentum.

ETH: Ethereum is trading at $4200. Analysts say that ETH’s rally is partially due to increased capacity on-chain and lower DeFi costs.

Gold: Gold slid to $3,355.13 as upbeat risk sentiment and Trump’s pledge to exclude gold from tariffs weighed on safe-haven demand, though losses were cushioned by rising Fed rate cut bets ahead of this week’s U.S. inflation data.

Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets rose Tuesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 hitting a record high after the U.S.-China trade truce was extended, while investors awaited the Reserve Bank of Australia’s expected rate cut.

S&P 500: U.S. stocks eased, with the S&P 500 down 0.2% and just under its record, as investors await new inflation data .Meanwhile, Citigroup and UBS lifted their year-end S&P 500 targets, citing easing policy risks and solid earnings, with Citi raising its forecast to 6,600 and UBS to 6,100.

Elsewhere in Crypto

• Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Now Accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana for Spaceflights (Decrypt)
• Rumble Gains on Plans to Acquire Tether-Affiliated Northern Data (CoinDesk)
• Senate Banking Committee Democratic staff slam GOP crypto draft bill as ‘superhighway’ for dodging regulation (The Block)

Meme coins are known for hype, volatility, and short lifespans. But Little Pepe ($LILPEPE) is trying to rewrite that narrative.

With over $16M raised across multiple presale stages, the project is building more than a token – it’s launching its own Layer 2 blockchain for meme coins, complete with zero-tax trading, bot protection, and a fully integrated launchpad for new projects.

As speculation rages across the meme coin sector, Little Pepe is positioning itself as the infrastructure that future meme tokens can rely on – offering fast, secure, and low-cost transactions on a blockchain purpose-built for virality.

Little Pepe Story So Far – Viral From Birth

Little Pepe came out swinging, with strong presale momentum as soon as it launched.

• Stage 1: Sold out in 3 days – $500K raised at $0.001 per token
• Stage 2: Price bumped to $0.0011-$0.0015, demand increased – $1.23M+ raised
• Stage 3: Token price rose to $0.0012
• Stage 4: The presale raised $2.9M
• Stage 5: Price is at $0.0014, and the raise is over $5.1M

Fast-forward a bit, and the presale now sits at Stage 9. Tokens cost $0.0019 – and over $16.3M has poured into the presale so far. Why all the interest?

Most meme coins are just ERC-20 tokens. Little Pepe is building the chain those meme coins will want to launch on.

Most of the best meme coins ride the Ethereum or Solana wave, but both chains come with major downsides: high gas fees, slow confirmations, and vulnerable bot manipulation. Little Pepe’s Layer 2 directly addresses these pain points:

• Ultra-low gas fees for cheaper trading and better access for retail users
• Fast finality means no more waiting for confirmations during hype moments
• Bot protection provides built-in anti-sniping and fairer launches

That said, Little Pepe is EVM-compatible, so existing dApps and token contracts can migrate seamlessly.

Tokenomics support the presale, with over 26% reserved directly for the presale and another 30% kept for on-chain reserves.

Real Utility – A Launchpad Built for Meme Coin Creators

At the heart of Little Pepe’s ecosystem is Pepe’s Pump Pad, a user-friendly launchpad designed to make deploying new meme coins effortless and secure. Bypass the fuss of Ethereum launches and setting up smart contracts.

With the Pump Pad, users can create tokens without writing a single line of code, lock liquidity automatically, and integrate default smart contract security measures.

The system also includes built-in bot protection and allows for instant deployment on Little Pepe’s high-speed Layer 2 blockchain. Little Pepe’s Pump Pad gives meme coin creators a safe, streamlined platform to launch without losing any of that distinctive meme coin flair..

What’s Next for Little Pepe?

Little Pepe’s development roadmap follows a quirky but clear trajectory: Pregnancy, Birth, and Growth.

The current phase – Pregnancy – focuses on presale fundraising and community building. The upcoming Birth phase will introduce major exchange listings, first on DEXs, then expanding to CEXs as soon as possible. The Birth phase will also see an expanded marketing campaign.

The final phase – Growth – will see the launch of the full Layer 2 blockchain and the rollout of ecosystem tools and partner integrations. After the presale concludes, users will be able to claim their tokens directly via the official website.

Little Pepe enforces a zero-tax policy, meaning no buy or sell fees – a rare move in the meme coin space that encourages frequent and frictionless trading on-chain.

The $777K Giveaway: How to Enter

What’s one reason for all the buzz around Little Pepe? A massive $777K giveaway.

A total of 10 winners will receive $77K each in $LILPEPE tokens.

Entering is simple: participants must purchase at least $100 worth of tokens during the presale and complete social media engagement tasks – such as following and sharing content on X and Telegram.

The more actions a participant completes, the higher their chances of winning one of the coveted $77K prizes.

Little Pepe – Born to Run

In a sea of copy-paste meme coins, Little Pepe is building real infrastructure. From its Ethereum-compatible Layer 2 chain to its one-click launchpad and zero-tax trading model, the project looks to transform the meme coin meta in 2025 and beyond.

To join the presale, connect your MetaMask or Trust Wallet to the presale website. Buy $LILPEPE with $ETH or $USDT (ERC-20). You can also pay with a card through the official Little Pepe website.

With over $16M raised and presale prices still under $0.0020, $LILPEPE might be one of the few frog tokens with real legs.

Do your own research – this isn’t financial advice.