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The IPO market has grown quiet again.

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It’s quiet out there in IPO land — very quiet.

This is it: the weeks before Thanksgiving usually bring a spate of large IPOs eager to go public before the holiday season starts.

“Whatever you are going to get between now and the end of the year should be happening right now,” Don Short, head of venture equity at InvestX, told me.

Except, nothing is happening.

“The bad companies can’t go public, and the good companies don’t want to go public in a bad market,” Matt Kennedy from Renaissance Capital said.

A terrible performance for stocks in October, higher-for-longer interest rates, poor after-market performances from the recent spate of initial public offerings this summer and the prospects of dramatically lower valuations appear to be causing many IPO candidates to rethink or delay their debuts.

The steady rise in the 10-year Treasury yield was a particular deal killer.

“That was a big wet blanket” for the IPO market, Greg Martin from Rainmaker Securities told me.

Companies delaying IPOs

Waystar, which was considering launching its roadshow last week, is reportedly delaying its IPO until December or into 2024.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Panera Bread was laying off 17% of its corporate staff in advance of a possible IPO next year.

Others still interested in an IPO may have to take very large haircuts.

Buy now, pay later firm Klarna, another oft-mentioned IPO candidate, told CNBC it has no immediate plans to go public. The company last raised cash at a valuation of $6.7 billion, which marked a massive 85% haircut to its previous valuation of nearly $46 billion.

Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein has not made a decision on the timing or valuation of an IPO, but sources familar with the company’s plans told Bloomberg the company was targeting a valuation of $80 billion to $90 billion. However, the most recent funding round in May valued the company at $66 billion.

This is in stark contrast to most years, when big IPOs went public in November and December.

Rivian, the biggest IPO of 2021, priced on Nov. 9, 2021, and began trading the next day. Hertz raised $1.3 billion in November 2021. Braze raised $500 million the same month, Sweetgreen raised $364 million. Allbirds raised $303 billion.

Airbnb went public in December 2020 and raised $3.5 billion. The day before that, Doordash raised $3.4 billion. A month earlier, in November 2020, Sotera Health raised $1.1 billion, and Miravai Life Sciences raised $1.6 billion.

But the year-end IPO gold rush fizzled in 2022, and it’s fizzling again this year.

So far, 96 IPOs have raised $18.8 billion in 2023, according to Renaissance Capital. That’s following on 2022, when a measly $7.7 billion was raised, the worst year for IPOs in decades. By contrast, a normal year should see at least $50 billion raised.

Recent IPOs aren’t helping

It didn’t help that the recent spate of IPOs have not gone well.

“What I was hearing was that everyone that was lining up after Instacart went public [in September] pulled their deal and everything went a bit quiet,” Short told me.

Three of the biggest IPOs of the year are trading below their offering prices, and, a fourth, Arm, is trading near its debut price, after dipping below it in early trading Thursday.

Largest IPOs, 2023
(from offering price)

Arm about flat
Kenvue down 13%
Birkenstock down 8%
Instacart down 10%

Source: Renaissance Capital

Marketing automation company Klaviyo, which went public in September, is also trading 8% below its offering price of $30 after reporting earnings on Tuesday.

Restaurant chain Cava Group went public in June and at $31 is trading above its initial offering price of $22, but the stock was as high as $57 in the month after it went public, so at Wednesday’s price of $31 most of the original buyers of the stock after the open are under water.

The Renaissance Capital IPO ETF (IPO), a basket of roughly 60 of the largest IPOs in the past two years, is down 17% from its July peak to October trough, S&P wasn’t as bad but similar trajectory.

Some companies may still go public

The market is not completely closed.

“I wouldn’t discount December. If the latest rally continues, we could get more activity,” Kennedy said. “Companies want to go public when there is an expectation the market is going to trade up.”

There are some small firms still in the pipeline.

U.S. natural gas producer BKV, which filed for a $100 million IPO in November of last year, recently updated its prospectus, which is a sign they are still looking to go public.

Homebuilder Smith Douglas, which filed for a $100 million IPO in September, also updated its prospectus in mid-October.

American Healthcare REIT, which filed in September 2022, filed updated financials and announced an additional underwriter (Morgan Stanley) this week.

Here’s another problem: AI

So what happens to some of the older IPO candidates like Reddit or Stripe? As time goes on, they get less interesting.

“The excitement right now is in the AI space, but none of them are ready yet to go public,” Short said. “There are a lot of names still burning cash, but there’s not a lot of capital available for anything that isn’t AI right now.”

That is the main reason Arm is one of the few IPOs that isn’t down sharply.

“Anything associated with AI is a whole other category, and Arm is definitely getting a halo effect,” Short said. Arm reported its first earnings as a public company Wednesday night. Its shares were down about 7% in trading Thursday after offering a weak outlook.

Tough choices for IPO candidates

That leaves IPO candidates with three choices: 1) go public, likely with a substantial haircut, 2) stay private, also likely with a haircut, and hope that your venture capital source will continue to fund you, or 3) merge or go out of business.

Greg Martin from Rainmaker Securities runs one of the leading private platforms for trading pre-IPO companies. He told me the companies in the best position are those who could fund their operations from their own cash flow, but that is not a large group.

“The private financing markets are even worse than the public financing markets, so you really don’t want to be running out of cash right now,” Martin said, adding that he is seeing much lower prices for private sales of stock compared with two years ago.

That leaves many of the roughly 800 tech unicorns (those with valuations above $1 billion) in a precarious position.

“We are starting to see unicorns die,” Martin said. “There’s a lot of lower quality unicorns with negative EBIDTA [cash flow], and there’s not much demand for them in the public markets, so the M&A route is increasingly likely for a lot of companies.”

— Reports /TrainViral

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Crypto

Bitcoin’s Recovery – the Downturn Is Over

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The market is currently in a news-driven environment where the prices of cryptocurrencies have been determined by news agenda rather than fundamentals.

Bitfinex analysts have warned crypto investors to be cautious as bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery over the weekend is not a sign that its correction is over; the asset could witness more bloodshed in the near term.

In the latest Bitfinex Alpha report, experts deemed the market’s reaction this week critical, especially as supply alleviated over the weekend could return when traditional markets open.

“No Man’s Land”

Since Saturday, bitcoin has risen almost 10% from $57,600 to $63,000, closing last week in the green. The asset has surged above the 125-day range low of $60,200, which it broke through earlier this month after news of the German government’s massive BTC selling hit the market.

Market sentiment began to improve after reports that wallets linked to the German government were almost empty. However, the positive sentiment may not be sustained for long as the BTC the German authorities moved to trading desks and exchanges are yet to be sold.

While the supply from Germany appears to have been factored into bitcoin’s market price, Bitfinex analysts believe the end of selling pressure depends on how the involved trading desks execute their trades in the coming days.

Although the shift in sentiment underscores the market’s capacity to integrate new information and adjust expectations quickly, analysts think the market’s reaction over the first two trading days of the week cannot be overlooked for two reasons.

First, the low support level in the $60,200 range has now become a potential resistance line. Second, trading patterns over the past three months suggest that weekends are usually favorable for markets, especially on Saturdays when supply pressure seems to subside.

“We are now in no man’s land until we get clear resolution above or below this level,” the analysts said.

A News-Driven Environment

Besides the potential resistance level and three-month weekend trading pattern, the market is currently in a news-driven environment, where the prices of cryptocurrencies have been determined by news agendas rather than fundamentals.

Since selling pressure concerns are not yet completely obsolete due to upcoming Mt Gox creditor distributions, Bitfinex analysts expect such headlines to continue to have some impact on price movements. As such, the analysts urged investors to exercise caution in their trading strategies.

Reports /Trainviral/

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Crypto

Bitcoin ETFs Saw $300M in Daily Net Inflows

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BlackRock’s IBIT led with $117.25 million in inflows on July 15, also being the most traded Bitcoin ETF.

The US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a daily net inflow of $301 million on July 15th. This extended their winning streak to seven consecutive days amidst a broader market recovery.

None of the ETFs recorded outflows for the day.

Bitcoin ETFs Rake in $16.11B in Net Inflows Since Jan

According to the data compiled by SoSoValue, BlackRock’s IBIT, the top spot Bitcoin ETF by net asset value, recorded the largest net inflows of the day at $117.25 million. IBIT was also the most actively traded Bitcoin ETF on Monday, with a volume of $1.24 billion. Ark Invest and 21Shares’ ARKB came in close behind with net inflows of $117.19 million.

Fidelity’s FBTC experienced net inflows of $36.15 million on Monday, while Bitwise’s BITB saw $15.24 million in inflows. VanEck’s HODL, Invesco and Galaxy Digital’s BTCO, and Franklin Templeton’s EZBC funds also recorded net inflows. Meanwhile, Grayscale’s GBTC and other ETFs, such as Valkyrie’s BRRR, WisdomTree’s BTCW, and Hashdex’s DEFI, registered no flows for the day.

A total of $2.26 billion was traded on Monday. The trading volume for these ETFs was less than in March when it exceeded $8 billion on some days. Meanwhile, these funds have collectively attracted $16.11 billion in net inflow since their January launch.

What’s Next For Bitcoin?

Earlier this month, bitcoin’s price decline was mainly due to fears of massive selling pressure from Mt. Gox and the German government’s BTC sales.

But the assassination attempt on pro-crypto former US President and presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump at Saturday’s rally seemed to spark a recovery in the world’s largest digital asset, and experts are bullish on the asset’s price trajectory going forward. Bitcoin surged more than 9% over the past week and was currently trading slightly below $64,000.

Veteran trader Peter Brandt discussed bitcoin’s price outlook, suggesting a potential major rally. He referred to a pattern he terms “Hump->Slump->Bump->Dump->Pump” and highlighted that the July 5 double top attempt was a bear trap, confirmed by the July 13 close. He sees a likely continued upward trend but warned that a close below $56,000 would negate this bullish view.

“Bitcoin $BTC could be unfolding its often-repeated Hump…Slump…Bump…Dump…Pump chart construction. Jul 5 attempt at the double top was a bear trap, confirmed by Jul 13 close. Most likely scenario now is that bears are trapped. Close below $56k negates this interpretation”

Reports /Trainviral/

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Crypto

LI.FI DeFi Platform Exploited, Over $8M Lost

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PeckShield alert reveals LI.FI’s protocol vulnerability is similar to a March 2022 attack, with the same bug recurring.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform LI.FI protocol has suffered an exploit amounting to over $8 million.

Cyvers Alerts reported detecting suspicious transactions within the LI.FI cross-chain transaction aggregator.

LI.FI Issues Warning After $8 Million Exploit

LI.FI confirmed the breach in a statement on July 16 via X: “Please do not interact with any http://LI.FI powered applications for now! We’re investigating a potential exploit.” The team clarified that users who did not set infinite approval are not at risk, emphasizing that only those who manually set infinite approvals seem to be affected.

According to Cyvers Alerts, more than $8 million in user funds have been stolen, with the majority being stablecoins. According to on-chain data, the hacker’s wallet holds 1,715 Ether (ETH) valued at $5.8 million and USDC, USDT, and DAI stablecoins.

Cyvers Alerts advised users to revoke relevant authorizations immediately, noting that the attacker is actively converting USDC and USDT into ETH.

Crypto security firm Decurity provided insights into the exploit, stating that it involves the LI.FI bridge. “The root cause is a possibility of an arbitrary call with user-controlled data via depositToGasZipERC20() in GasZipFacet, which was deployed 5 days ago,” Decurity explained on X.

“In general, the risks behind routers, cross-chain swaps, etc. are about token approvals. Raw native assets like (unwrapped) ETH are safe from these kinds of hacks b/c they don’t have approvals as an option. Most users & wallets also no longer do “infinite approvals” which gives a smart contract total control on removing any amount of their tokens. It’s important to understand which tokens you’re approving to which contracts.

This dashboard looks for all transactions of a user that intersects Lifi. Not all of these transactions indicate risk- but you can see how, broadly, integrations & layers of tech (like how Metamask bridge uses Lifi on BSC) can complicate how users do or don’t put their assets at risk. Revoke Cash is the most well known approval manager app.

But it’s also good security practice to simply rotate your address. New addresses start with 0 approvals, so starting fresh by moving your tokens to a fresh address is another good security practice.” – commented Carlos Mercado, Data Scientist at Flipside Crypto.

Recent Exploit Mirrors March 2022 Attack

Further analysis by PeckShield alert revealed that the vulnerability is similar to a previous attack on LI.FI’s protocol that occurred on March 20, 2022. That incident saw a bad actor exploit LI.FI’s smart contract, specifically the swapping feature, before bridging.

The attacker manipulated the system to call token contracts directly within their contract’s context, making users who had given infinite approval vulnerable. This exploit resulted in the theft of approximately 205 ETH from 29 wallets, affecting tokens such as USDC, MATIC, RPL, GNO, USDT, MVI, AUDIO, AAVE, JRT, and DAI.

“The bug is basically the same. Are we learning anything from the past lesson(s)?” PeckShield Alert said in a July 16 X post.

Following the 2022 incident, LI.FI disabled all swap methods in its smart contract and worked on developing a fix to prevent future vulnerabilities. However, the recurrence of a similar exploit raises concerns about the platform’s security measures and whether adequate steps were taken to address the vulnerabilities identified in the previous breach.

LI.FI is a liquidity aggregation protocol that allows users to trade across various blockchains, venues, and bridges.

Reports /Trainviral/

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