In brief
- Figure shares closed 24% above their IPO price at $31.11 on Thursday.
- The company uses a blockchain-based platform to facilitate loans.
- Analysts foresee the IPO advancing tokenization narratives in the mainstream.
Figure Technologies shares closed above its initial offering price on Thursday, the latest indication of investors’ interest in crypto-native firms on Wall Street.
The firm’s stock price rose to $31.11, a 24% gain compared to its boosted IPO price of $25, according to Yahoo Finance. That gave it a valuation of $6.58 billion. Figure shares initially changed hands at $36 apiece.
Figure CEO Michael Tannenbaum told Decrypt that the company is showing Wall Street how blockchains can be used to create more efficient markets for real-world assets, while also helping investors better grasp concepts like tokenization.
Figure uses a blockchain-based platform to facilitate loans, and it collapses a process that takes most competitors a month and a half to complete into a handful of days, he said. It usually costs someone $12,000 to take out a mortgage, but Figure’s platform can do it for $1,000, he added.
“Those are like real savings for consumers, and I think it's a great example of using some of the principles of blockchain,” Tannenbaum said. “There's a lot of great blockchain companies out there, but I think we're unique, in that people can really see our results in the real world.”
Figure’s platform has $11.7 billion in outstanding loans, serving as the largest market for private credit on-chain, per data from RWA.xyz. Established in 2018, the firm says it has originated $16 billion in loans alongside its partners since inception.
Figure’s IPO could advance narratives around tokenization among traditional investors, according to Gerry O’Shea, head of global market insights at crypto asset manager Hashdex. The interest in Figure’s Nasdaq debut speaks to that, he told Decrypt.
“Investors are demonstrating a belief that digital assets will disrupt some of more traditional financial services,” he said. “It’s part of a longer-term narrative that we’re starting to see more investors appreciate: This technology isn’t going away.”
Some IPOs have already shaped narratives this year. Stablecoin issuer Circle debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in June, and its stock price initially soared. At the time, analysts viewed it as one of the only ways for investors to gain exposure to the emergent sector.
“Investors are looking at utility over speculation with excitement about Figure's cash-flowing, real-world credit platform that is blockchain-enabled,” Bitwise Senior Investment Strategist Juan Leon told Decrypt, noting that the pop lands during “the busiest U.S. IPO week since 2021.”
The recent passage of the GENIUS Act, a federal framework for stablecoins, also removed key policy overhangs for crypto payments, tokenized credit, and capital-markets rails, he said.
On Thursday, Figure became the ninth major crypto firm to go public in the U.S. this year, but investors won’t have to wait long for another. The Winklevoss brothers will have a chance to ring the Nasdaq’s opening bell when crypto exchange Gemini goes public on Friday.