NextFin News - Redotpay, the Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm, is preparing to file confidentially for a US initial public offering by the end of 2026, according to people familiar with the matter, after months of internal deliberation and wrangling over regulatory and legal issues. The company is also in discussions with investors about a possible pre-IPO funding round that would value it at $4 billion to $5 billion, one of the people said.
The report is the latest turn in a volatile year for Redotpay's public-market ambitions. In February, the company was said to be weighing a New York listing at a valuation above $4 billion, with reported plans to raise more than $1 billion. By August, those plans were reported delayed into 2027 or later amid a $473 million lawsuit from Binance affiliates and unresolved regulatory approvals. In late September, Redotpay pushed back, saying its IPO had not been deferred and that it had completed a financial audit - a mandatory step for a US listing.
Now, with a year-end confidential filing back on the table, the question is no longer whether Redotpay wants to go public. It is whether US investors will pay a premium for a crypto-card issuer whose fastest growth came through a channel now being contested in court - and whether a market that has already soured on one stablecoin IPO has room for a second.
The Company Behind the Filing
Redotpay sells physical and virtual Visa and Mastercard debit cards that users load with stablecoins such as Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC, letting them spend crypto at any merchant that accepts ordinary card payments. Founded in 2023, the company says it serves more than 6 million registered users across more than 100 markets and processes over $10 billion in annualized payment volume, while generating more than $150 million in annualized revenue. Payment volume nearly tripled year over year in 2025, with more than 3 million new users added through November of that year.
That growth has been funded by venture capital at a brisk pace. In December 2025, Redotpay closed an oversubscribed $107 million Series B round led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Pantera Capital, Blockchain Capital and Circle Ventures, bringing its total capital raised in 2025 to $194 million. Earlier rounds included a $40 million Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and a roughly $47 million round that took the company to unicorn status, with backing from Coinbase Ventures, Galaxy Digital and Vertex Ventures. The December round valued the company at about $2 billion, according to data compiled on private-company valuations.
"Our goal is to help users manage their finances with confidence through stablecoin-powered financial services. With our latest funding, we plan to accelerate product innovation and expand our global reach," said Michael Gao, co-founder and chief executive of Redotpay, in the company's December funding announcement.
The $4 billion to $5 billion valuation now under discussion for a pre-IPO round would represent a doubling to 2.5x increase over the December 2025 round in roughly one year. Against the company's reported annualized revenue, that prices Redotpay at 27 to 33 times sales - a multiple that assumes the market will treat it as a payments-infrastructure winner rather than a crypto-card issuer. For comparison, Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, went public in June 2025 at a market value of about $6.9 billion and is now valued by the public market on the strength of its balance-sheet interest income, not on a revenue multiple at all.
Why the IPO Was Delayed - and Why a Confidential Filing Changes the Calculus
The August delay was driven by two distinct problems, and conflating them is a mistake. The first is regulatory. Redotpay is a Hong Kong company operating in more than 100 countries, and a US listing requires it to satisfy disclosure and compliance expectations that a private startup can defer. The company holds a Virtual Asset Service Provider license in Argentina, is registered as a money services business in Canada and with FinCEN in the United States, and holds money-lender and trust-or-company-service-provider licenses in Hong Kong. It also obtained a US money transmitter license in 2026 as part of its American expansion.
The second problem is legal, and it is larger. In August 2026, Binance-affiliated entities - Nest Trading, DistributedTechnologies and Chaintecs Consulting Singapore - filed suit in Hong Kong against Redotpay's three co-founders, Gao Zhangpeng, Chan Wa Choi and Yao Chao, alleging they diverted roughly 470,000 Binance Card users to Redotpay's competing stablecoin card in breach of a March 2025 commercial agreement, causing about $473 million in losses. Redotpay rejected the allegations as unfounded and said it would defend itself vigorously.
"RedotPay is aware of legal proceedings initiated by Binance and will vigorously defend all claims. The Company rejects the unfounded allegations made against it and its co-founders."
A confidential submission under US securities rules lets a company deliver its registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission without immediate public disclosure. The filing stays private until 15 days before the company begins marketing the deal to investors, at which point it becomes public. For Redotpay, the mechanism is strategically useful: it allows the company to negotiate with regulators and resolve litigation questions before exposing its full risk-factor section to the market, while still signaling to investors and lenders that the IPO is alive.
In other words, a confidential filing is an option, not a commitment. Redotpay can lock in its place in the review queue, address SEC comments behind closed doors, and wait for a more favorable market window - or a clearer litigation outcome - before the IPO is unveiled. That flexibility is valuable when the alternative is a stalled fundraising process and a valuation that depends on a public-market reception the company cannot yet observe.
The Second-Order Question: Is This Growth Structural, or a Legal Contingency?
The conventional read of this story is simple: crypto is back in favor, stablecoin adoption is accelerating, and Redotpay is riding the wave. The numbers support the theme. The total stablecoin market capitalization surpassed $320 billion in April 2026, up from approximately $205 billion at the start of 2025 - a more than 50 percent increase in roughly sixteen months, and a figure that has continued to set new highs. Aggregate stablecoin transaction volume reached $33 trillion in 2025, a 72 percent year-over-year increase. Circle's USDC alone saw a 19 percent year-over-year rise in circulation to $73.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026.
In that environment, a payments company built on stablecoin rails looks like a natural public-market beneficiary. But the second-order question is whether Redotpay's growth is structural - a durable shift in how consumers pay - or cyclical, tied to a specific acquisition channel that may not survive litigation.
The uncomfortable answer is that a large part of Redotpay's user acquisition came through the very channel now under legal dispute: users moving from Binance's card product to Redotpay's. The Binance suit alleges that more than 470,000 users were diverted in breach of a commercial agreement. If the litigation results in a settlement or judgment that restricts that funnel, the company's fastest growth lever is also its largest contingent liability. The $473 million damages claim is not just a legal line item; it is a proxy for how much of Redotpay's user base may have been acquired through relationships it no longer fully controls.
That is the mechanism the market will price, and it runs in two directions. First-order: a loss or restrictive settlement reduces future user growth and adds a cash liability. Second-order: it forces Redotpay to rebuild acquisition through its own distribution - paid marketing, partnerships, and organic channels - which raises customer-acquisition costs and compresses the margins that justify a 27x to 33x revenue multiple. Third-order: if the public filing discloses that a meaningful share of the 6 million-user base came through the disputed channel, investors will discount not just the legal risk but the quality of the revenue itself.
There is also a competitive anchor the market has barely priced. Redotpay is not the only stablecoin-payments company racing toward an exit. Rain, a New York-based infrastructure provider for stablecoin payments, raised a $250 million Series C in January 2026 led by ICONIQ at a $1.95 billion valuation, with total funding above $338 million and annual transaction volumes exceeding $3 billion across more than 150 countries. On a price-to-volume basis, Redotpay's $10 billion in annualized volume at a $4 billion to $5 billion valuation implies 0.4 to 0.5 times volume, cheaper than Rain's roughly 0.65 times. But Rain sells enterprise infrastructure with recurring contracts, while Redotpay's consumer-card revenue is more exposed to interchange rates, foreign-exchange spreads and crypto-market sentiment. When two companies in the same narrow niche raise capital at multibillion-dollar valuations within months of each other, the public market will force a comparison - and Redotpay's revenue multiple will be judged against Rain's business-model durability, not just its headline valuation.
The Counter-Case: Why the Filing Could Still Succeed
The strongest argument against a bearish read is that Redotpay has already done the hard work that stopped other crypto IPOs. It completed its financial audit, a gating item that has delayed or derailed listings across the sector. It has assembled a regulatory footprint across multiple jurisdictions rather than relying on a single license. And it reports profitability on an annualized basis, which separates it from the loss-leading crypto names that went public during the last cycle and never found a floor.
There is also the matter of sequencing. A confidential filing by year-end does not mean a public debut by year-end. Redotpay can use the confidential review process to address SEC comments, monitor the Binance litigation, and choose a window when crypto equities are bid. Circle's own path is instructive here: it priced at $31 in June 2025, surged to a record $300 in late June, and then gave back most of those gains, closing at $113 as of May 22, 2026 - a 62 percent decline from its peak, though still about 3.65 times its IPO price. Circle's first post-IPO earnings were a warning shot: it beat on earnings per share but missed on revenue, and the market rerated the stock anyway. Redotpay's advisers - reported to include JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Jefferies - will be watching that arc closely. The lesson is that the initial appetite for stablecoin exposure is real, but the tolerance for richly priced growth stories is not.
The regulatory backdrop has also improved since Redotpay first considered a listing. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in 2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, and the stablecoin market has expanded into a more institutionally legible asset class. A company with Redotpay's licensing footprint is better positioned to navigate that regime than a startup launching into regulatory ambiguity. That is a structural tailwind, not a cyclical one, and it is the part of the thesis that is hardest to dispute.
Even so, the counter-case has a clear breaking point. If Redotpay's confidential filing - once it becomes public - discloses that the Binance litigation has materially worsened - a larger damages estimate, an adverse preliminary ruling, or a settlement that concedes user-diversion restrictions - the valuation narrative collapses regardless of how strong the underlying payments business is. Investors will not pay a growth multiple for users whose acquisition the company may be ordered to stop.
What to Watch Next
The near-term signal is the filing itself. A confidential submission by year-end, as reported, would confirm that Redotpay is serious about a 2027 public debut and that its advisers are comfortable moving forward despite the litigation. The medium-term signal is the litigation docket in Hong Kong: any ruling on injunctive relief, a disclosed settlement figure, or an expansion of the damages claim would reprice the risk instantly.
Over the longer horizon, the question is whether Redotpay can diversify its user acquisition away from the disputed Binance channel and prove that its growth is repeatable through its own distribution. The company's stated target of more than $5 billion in valuation assumes the market treats it as a payments-infrastructure winner, not as a crypto-card issuer whose growth came with legal strings attached.
Base case: Redotpay files confidentially by year-end, the Binance case drags on without a decisive ruling, and the company prices its IPO in 2027 at a valuation modestly above its last private round. Upside case: the lawsuit settles quietly, stablecoin adoption accelerates, and Redotpay commands a premium to Circle's rerated multiple. Downside case: the litigation produces an adverse outcome, the confidential filing stalls, and the pre-IPO round is repriced below $4 billion or abandoned.
Redotpay's year-end filing is less a victory lap than a test of whether the market will pay for growth that is still being contested in court. The confidential route buys time, but it cannot buy certainty - and in a market that has already punished one stablecoin IPO, certainty is what the multiple will be built on.
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