This week, two key signals struck like thunder. First, according to Decrypt citing three informed sources, the crypto prime broker FalconX, valued at up to $8 billion, is in early discussions for an IPO, planning to submit an application as early as this year.

In parallel, the stock prices of Coinbase, a compliance benchmark in the U.S. stock market, and its strategic partner Circle have been steadily rising, driven by strong market expectations that "Coinbase's subsequent tokenized stock trading may use USDC as a medium."

Analyzing these two pieces of information together reveals a clear picture: the crypto industry's "Wall Street moment" is not a future event, but is happening now. A new paradigm centered on institutionalization, with stablecoins as the settlement layer and compliance listings as the mainstream path, is accelerating in formation.

FalconX's IPO Ambition: The "Last Mile" for Institutional Capital

To understand the significance of FalconX's planned IPO, one must first grasp the core position of a "Prime Broker" in the financial world. On Wall Street, the prime brokerage services of top investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the "crown jewels" serving large institutional investors such as hedge funds and family offices. They provide not just trade execution, but a comprehensive one-stop solution that includes block trading, leveraged financing, asset custody, and securities lending.

FalconX is replicating this mature Wall Street model in the crypto world. Its valuation of $8 billion from the last funding round itself indicates the market's high recognition of its sector value. Now, with the IPO plan emerging, it reveals two deep trends:

First, the institutionalization process has deeply entered the "no man's land." If the bull market of 2021 marked the 1.0 era of institutions beginning to "buy Bitcoin," today, we have entered the 2.0 era where institutions need to "trade crypto assets like Nasdaq stocks." They require partners capable of handling hundreds of millions or even billions in liquidity, providing complex financial instruments, and operating under strict regulation. The existence and growth of FalconX are precisely to meet this transition from "sampling" to "heavy investment," paving the "last mile" highway into the core of the crypto market.

Second, the industry is actively seeking the "crown" of mainstream capital markets. An IPO for any company signifies stricter financial audits, more transparent information disclosure, and a more comprehensive compliance framework. FalconX's proactive pursuit of listing is a "letter of intent" to Wall Street from crypto-native enterprises. It aims to embrace the rules of traditional financial markets in exchange for broader capital sources, higher market credibility, and to reserve "ammunition" for subsequent strategic acquisitions. This marks a shift in the mindset of industry leaders from "disrupting TradFi" to "integrating and leading TradFi."

USDC's Settlement Layer Dream: The Ultimate Practice of RWA Narrative

If FalconX represents the crypto world's "exit" to Wall Street, then the movements of Coinbase and Circle represent the "entry" of core Wall Street assets into the crypto world.

The continuous rise in the stock prices of Coinbase and Circle is no coincidence. The market is pricing in a rumor with immense imaginative potential—Coinbase's tokenized stock trading may use USDC as the core settlement medium. If this idea becomes a reality, its significance will be revolutionary, as it will thoroughly validate the ultimate narrative of stablecoins.

In the traditional financial system, stock trading follows a "T+1" settlement system, meaning that funds and securities can only be settled on the second business day after a transaction occurs. This process is not only inefficient but also consumes a large amount of capital.

A stock trading system based on USDC as the settlement layer would bring:

• Near-instant atomic settlement: Transactions and settlements can be completed simultaneously on the blockchain (atomic), completely eliminating counterparty risk and lengthy waiting periods.

• 24/7 uninterrupted market: Breaking free from the constraints of the banking system, enabling continuous trading around the clock, seamlessly connecting with the global crypto market.

• Extremely high capital efficiency: No need to pledge large amounts of margin in the clearing system, allowing released capital to be used for more efficient investments.

This is precisely the most exciting application scenario of the "Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization" narrative. It is no longer a theoretical discussion but is reshaping the world's largest and most core financial asset—stocks—through blockchain technology. In this scenario, the role of USDC will elevate from a simple "digital dollar" or trading medium to the underlying settlement infrastructure of the next generation of financial markets. It will become a value "pipeline" connecting TradFi and Crypto, with its network effects and intrinsic value being immeasurable. Coinbase and Circle, as core builders of this ecosystem, are seeing their stock prices perform well as the market casts an early vote for this grand vision.

Outlook: Moving Towards an Era of Integration Among Giants

Combining FalconX's IPO ambitions with USDC's settlement layer dream, we can clearly see the future evolution path of the crypto industry. This is an inevitable process of bidding farewell to the wild and moving towards maturity.

A new era led by "compliance giants" such as Coinbase, Circle, and FalconX, serving global institutional capital and the real economy, is beginning to unfold. In this era, speculative hype will gradually give way to value discovery based on real utility. The valuation logic of the industry will shift from purely user growth to assessing its network value, settlement volume, and technological barriers as financial infrastructure.

For all market participants, understanding this profound structural shift is more important than predicting the price of the next Bitcoin halving. Because what we are witnessing is not just the rise of a few companies, but a transformation of an entire industry—a true "Wall Street moment" for the crypto world.

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