Circle shares rocket nearly 200% above IPO price

USDC stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group's shares soared after the company's initial public offering went live on Thursday, with its stock to over $90 per share, according to TradingView .

Circle's shares, ticker symbol CRCL, are on pace to close well above its IPO price of $31. The stock's massive gains briefly triggered at least one halt of trading on the New York Stock Exchange around 1 p.m. ET.

Ever since Circle announced its final plans to go public, the prospects for the company's potential valuation and share price appeared to improve. Circle and its backers, including Allaire, sold 34 million shares at about $31 each to net the firm about $1.1 billion , according to a report on Wednesday. That was after earlier this week, the company upped the price of selling shares for between $27 and $28 from $24 to $26 per share.

"Our transformation into being a public company is a significant and powerful milestone – the world is ready to start upgrading and moving to the internet financial system," Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said Thursday in a post on X.

Circle's USDC is the world's second-largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin behind Tether's USDT. While USDC's supply is far below USDT's, Circle being based in the United States could prove an advantage as the digital assets market grows.