[GUEST ACCESS MODE: Data is scrambled or limited to provide examples. Make requests using your API key to unlock full data. Check https://lunarcrush.ai/auth for authentication information.]  Chamath Palihapitiya [@chamath](/creator/twitter/chamath) on x 1.9M followers Created: 2025-06-20 19:00:31 UTC This was what I was hoping to fix with SPACs. You may not like SPAC founder promotes or other forms of value transfer to intermediaries but you can never claim it wasn't disclosed. The Circle IPO, and ALL traditional IPOS, are the opposite. Value is transferred to randoms and it makes no sense. In order to get the IPO off, the team at Circle had to sell 14.4M shares at the IPO price of $XX for total proceeds of $446M. These shares were "bought" by the IPO bank and then sold to their best clients. Those 14.4M shares are now worth $3.456B. Meaning the employees that sold these shares lost out on $3B in the past XX days. To be clear, this method of value transfer doesn't happen via a direct listing or SPAC - the benefits in SPACs and DLs are disclosed very explicitly up front. They can be negotiated, minimized etc to the benefit of selling shareholders and buying shareholders. Only in a traditional IPO do banks use opacity like this. And the media acts along by writing headlines to tell you how a "first day pop" is a good sign. It's not. It means the deal was mispriced and banks were able to reward their best customers completely unrelated to the company in question with free stock. In this case, it was a $3B gift from the employees and investors of Circle to people they don't know, will never know and have nothing to do with their journey. XXXXXXXXX engagements  **Related Topics** [stocks](/topic/stocks) [ipos](/topic/ipos) [ipo](/topic/ipo) [spac](/topic/spac) [Post Link](https://x.com/chamath/status/1936137103701839916)
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Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath on x 1.9M followers
Created: 2025-06-20 19:00:31 UTC
This was what I was hoping to fix with SPACs. You may not like SPAC founder promotes or other forms of value transfer to intermediaries but you can never claim it wasn't disclosed.
The Circle IPO, and ALL traditional IPOS, are the opposite. Value is transferred to randoms and it makes no sense.
In order to get the IPO off, the team at Circle had to sell 14.4M shares at the IPO price of $XX for total proceeds of $446M. These shares were "bought" by the IPO bank and then sold to their best clients.
Those 14.4M shares are now worth $3.456B. Meaning the employees that sold these shares lost out on $3B in the past XX days.
To be clear, this method of value transfer doesn't happen via a direct listing or SPAC - the benefits in SPACs and DLs are disclosed very explicitly up front. They can be negotiated, minimized etc to the benefit of selling shareholders and buying shareholders.
Only in a traditional IPO do banks use opacity like this.
And the media acts along by writing headlines to tell you how a "first day pop" is a good sign. It's not. It means the deal was mispriced and banks were able to reward their best customers completely unrelated to the company in question with free stock.
In this case, it was a $3B gift from the employees and investors of Circle to people they don't know, will never know and have nothing to do with their journey.
XXXXXXXXX engagements
