Welcome back to the Big Law Business column. I’m Roy Strom, and today we look at a wave of initial public offerings by crypto companies. Sign up for Business & Practice, a free morning newsletter from Bloomberg Law.

Big Law firms are poised to cash in on an emerging wave of initial public offerings by cryptocurrency companies—just as a gushing spigot of legal fees from crypto-related bankruptcies turns off.

Amid an overall tepid market for new share listings, a handful of crypto companies have begun trading on public markets this year, including Circle Internet Group Inc., EToro Group Ltd., and Galaxy Digital. Davis Polk & Wardwell, Skadden, Latham & Watkins, and Cravath Swaine & Moore were involved in those deals, which raised nearly $2.5 billion combined.

More public listings are on the way.

Peter Thiel-backed crypto firm Bullish confidentially filed for an IPO this week, the Financial Times reported. Gemini, a crypto firm backed by the billionaire Winklevoss twins, made a similar filing, Bloomberg reported last week. Crypto exchange Kraken reportedly is preparing for an IPO that could launch early next year.

For Big Law, the crypto-supportive Trump administration represents something of a trade-off: Disputes and restructuring lawyers are giving way to deals teams as crypto companies steer past controversy and toward growth.

It wasn’t long ago that law firms like Sullivan & Cromwell, Kirkland & Ellis, White & Case, Cleary Gottlieb, and Weil Gotshal were racking up tens of millions in fees from crypto’s bankruptcy cases. With more than $750 million in fees from those bankruptcies paid, the fallout from the last crypto winter is largely over.

That fallout also brought risk for lawyers.

Sullivan & Cromwell had to defend itself from a lawsuit brought by FTX investors who alleged the firm was complicit in the company’s fraud before representing it in its bankruptcy proceeding. The lawsuit was dropped by the investors. An examiner’s report also cleared the firm in a separate controversy over what the firm knew related to a FTX purchase of shares in online trading exchange Robinhood.

A court examiner found Fenwick & West lawyers were “directly involved” in FTX’s efforts to blur its relationship with a sister hedge fund before the crypto exchange led by Sam Bankman-Fried went bust.

Now, regulators are ready to “pave the way for crypto expansion into the capital markets,” as the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s lone Democratic commissioner, Caroline Crenshaw, said this week.

The law firms leading this next stage of growth are the typical capital markets leaders.

Davis Polk advised Circle, which offers a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, and Galaxy Digital, a digital asset trading house that also owns artificial intelligence data centers. Skadden represented social-focused crypto trading platform EToro and the underwriters in the Circle deal. Latham represented the underwriters in the Galaxy Digital and EToro IPOs. Davis Polk also advised Galaxy on a $600 million stock offering, its first as a publicly traded company.

All three firms are in the top five in the year-to-date IPO league tables, according to Bloomberg data. Davis Polk and Latham, in particular, have fought it out for the top IPO adviser spot in recent years.

The wave of IPOs are a response to a more accommodating regulatory environment, said Daniel Gibbons, a Davis Polk partner who advised Circle and Galaxy Digital on their IPOs.

“There are tailwinds from a regulatory perspective, and you’re seeing a lot of these companies that have been waiting on the sidelines finally seizing their opportunity,” he said.

Circle, Bullish, and EToro attempted to go public in deals with blank-check companies announced in 2021, though none of those were ultimately completed.

Circle’s IPO led to a slew of single-stock exchange traded funds seeking a ride on the hot trade. The company’s shares have risen more than 275% since its debut.

Listing ETFs also requires legal work, and firms including Chapman and Cutler, Dechert, and Practus shepherded Circle-related vehicles through the SEC, according to filings with the regulator.

Crypto companies are also having more success ending investigations and lawsuits.

The SEC in February dismissed a case against Coinbase, which defended claims the company operated as an unregistered broker of securities. Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Sullivan & Cromwell represented Coinbase.

The regulator last month settled a case against Ripple Labs Inc., ending a dispute that began in 2020 for which the company enlisted lawyers from Debevoise & Plimpton and Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel.

Even with a more accommodating regulatory environment, crypto companies’ legal bills are likely to grow as they expand. Circle is a prime example, with the company disclosing its legal fees rose by $17.6 million in 2024 after increasing by $5.2 million a year earlier.

The nascent industry is still prone to volatility and can be vulnerable to hacks. But rest assured: whatever happens next, lawyers won’t be far from the action.

Paul Hastings partner Brad Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi, was overwhelmingly defeated in his bid to lead the DC bar association, Tatyana Monnay reports.

With the rule of law under attack, lawyers must step up to defend the legal needs of everyday Americans, writes Kathleen Rubenstein, former executive director of the Skadden Foundation.

A court fight is brewing among law firms gunning for the chance to earn a potential nine-figure fee challenging Silver Lake’s $13 billion acquisition of Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., Mike Leonard reports.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading and please send me your thoughts, critiques, and tips.