November 20, 2025
Kraken’s IPO plans caught attention, ETF buzz was overwhelming, and crypto prices swung on Nvidia earnings.
Welcome to the Meridian Update. Oh, members of the US House of Representatives are doing this and then following through on it like this. That seems, uh, good. Let’s dive in.
Kraken is planning to IPO
We have talked about Coinbase and Binance on the Meridian Update. We have never talked about Kraken. It’s about time.
Kraken, like Coinbase and Binance, is a centralized exchange (CEX) focused on crypto. Kraken, or more accurately Payward, Inc., the corporate entity behind Kraken, is also a company that exists off-chain to build things for the on-chain world. Currently, it is a privately held corporation.
“JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Crypto exchange Kraken files for US IPO.”
Its filing was confidential, and reported details have been sparse. For example:
“A Kraken spokesperson declined to comment on the timing of its plans.”
If it happens before the year is out, it would add to a pretty big 2025 for on-chain-focused companies going public. For example, Bullish went public on August 13, Circle went public on June 5, and Gemini went public on September 12.
Kraken just raised at a $20 billion valuation. Whenever it happens, it looks like this will be a big IPO.
People want to buy on-chain assets off-chain (part n)
While there was no individual exchange-traded product (ETP) news that was big enough to make the Meridian Update cut, the sheer volume did. Crypto Twitter couldn’t seem to stop talking about ETPs across the board.
Crypto Twitter spent the day noticing the strong performance of the various SOL, the native token of Solana, ETPs throughout November. SOL ETPs have experienced net inflows since the first ones launched at the end of October, including every trading day in November. We’re not sure why, but people took to tweeting about it yesterday.
Not to be left out, an Ether exchange-traded fund announcement brought the Ethereum network’s native token into the conversation:
“BlackRock is planning to file for a Staked Ethereum ETF, as per the Delaware name registration. '33 Act. Filing coming soon.”
Finally, news of BlackRock’s Bitcoin Trust ETF’s particularly bad day on Monday remained in the conversation.
We hope we can have a few days off of talking about ETPs for on-chain assets. We don’t make predictions, but we aren’t liking our chances. People want to buy on-chain assets off-chain in 2025, and companies keep giving people options.
As Nvidia goes, so go the crypto markets?
We have noted a few bad milestones for the price of Bitcoin in recent days. But yesterday, Nvidia had its quarterly earnings call and announced that it, well, had a good quarter. Naturally, this drove up the price of…BTC, SOL, and ETH?
Yes, it seems. Look, it’s hard to tell why prices move. Some times they just do. But this one seemed pretty clear. Nvidia announced its earnings, then the largest on-chain assets went from having bad days to having good days. All three of BTC, SOL, and ETH reversed their morning losses through the afternoon and evening. BTC and SOL reversed those losses completely, and turned positive by 9ET/6PT US time.
You can write all sorts of stories about why the largest on-chain assets would go up when Nvidia reports a good quarter. Most people are saying something like, “There were fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) bubble, which would have been bad for all industries and financial markets, so this was good for all industries and financial markets.” Seems reasonable enough? Conversely, maybe the price of BTC, SOL, and ETH should move on news about BTC, SOL, and ETH, respectively? Probably too crazy.
That’s a wrap
Kraken’s IPO plans caught attention, ETF buzz was overwhelming, and crypto prices swung on Nvidia earnings. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.
Think we missed something today? Send us a note: email@meridianupdate.com.