Mike Novogratz describes ‘unfair, infuriating’ path to Galaxy Digital’s Nasdaq listing
TORONTO — Mike Novogratz said he spent nearly four years and more than $25 million trying to take crypto firm Galaxy Digital public in the United States.
“It felt un-American, unfair, infuriating,” Novogratz said.
Novogratz told CNBC that a process that should take 45 to 90 days stretched out to 1,320 days. He said it took nine rounds of comments with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“One of the things that people didn’t understand about the crypto tax is that you needed to be very well capitalized — and a pretty big, strong company — just to stay in the game,” he said.
The billionaire crypto mogul will finally ring the opening bell at the Nasdaq Friday under the ticker GLXY with his company trading on U.S. public markets for the first time in a direct listing.
Novogratz said Galaxy’s auditing costs were significantly higher than those of firms like Jefferies — a consequence of the regulatory scrutiny that comes with being a crypto company. He said he expects those fees to drop by as much as 40% now that Galaxy is listed on the Nasdaq.
Yet instead of breaking Galaxy, the ordeal seemed to harden it.
“Scarcity makes you tougher,” Novogratz said. “We funded our company mostly through investment gains and trading.”
“We weren’t the only company that suffered,” Novogratz said, pointing to eToro, the Israeli trading platform, that went public on Nasdaq this week. Its listing was one of the first major fintech IPOs since 2021, signaling that investor appetite for crypto-adjacent firms is returning after years of regulatory caution and market volatility.
Until now, Galaxy Digital’s home on the public markets has been on the Toronto Stock Exchange, where the New York-based company went public in 2020, because U.S. regulators were too wary of crypto.
The TSX has become a testing ground for digital asset firms that couldn’t gain traction in American markets, even as U.S. investors and capital loomed just across the border.
But for Novogratz, whose ambitions were always bigger, the U.S. was the stage that mattered.
“Our visibility, volume, and notoriety in the Canadian market versus the U.S. is one to 30 — the U.S. market is 30 times deeper,” he said. “If we had been in the U.S. markets those four years, we’d be a different company.”
The former hedge fund manager turned crypto entrepreneur has built a reputation for direct and candid conversations. In Washington, he witnessed first-hand how crypto evolved from a fringe curiosity to a central issue in American politics.
“I was at the vice president’s inaugural ball as a representative Democrat,” Novogratz said.
In a room of roughly 300 attendees, he said he counted around 20 crypto CEOs — a striking show of the industry’s growing influence in Washington.
“I mean, it was shocking — the crypto representation down in D.C. over the inauguration — and Democrats noticed that. So I think, in earnest, there’s a core group of Democrats, and a big one, probably the majority of Democrats, that just want to pass crypto legislation that’s good for America, and move on, and, quite frankly, get crypto off the map as an electoral issue,” he said.
The turning point came with the election of President Donald Trump, a political shift that Novogratz saw unfolding in real-time.
“The flip got switched… the old regime knew the new regime was coming, and so they started to be much more supportive,” he said.
Conversations that had once been closed suddenly opened.
Novogratz met incoming SEC Chair Paul Atkins around the time of the inauguration. Atkins wasn’t yet in the role, but his stance was clear — he prioritized fair disclosure and leaned pro-business, pro-risk. Their conversation was high-level, focused on the regulator’s approach, but it left Novogratz with a sense of optimism.
“Ringing the bell is kind of the starting line, not the finish line,” said Novogratz.
Ford’s electric pickup truck is back at the top. The F-150 Lightning is once again the best-selling electric pickup in the US after overtaking the Tesla Cybertruck in the first quarter.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup
After launching in 2023, Tesla’s Cybertruck quickly outpaced the Lightning to become America’s top-selling EV pickup last year.
Since Tesla doesn’t break down regional sales, registration data gives us our best estimate. The latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News) shows that the F-150 Lightning retook the title in March and the first quarter of 2025.
Ford’s electric pickup notched 2,598 registrations in March, topping the Tesla Cybertruck with 2,170. In the first quarter, the F-150 Lightning remained ahead with 7,913 registrations, compared to the Cybertruck’s 7,126.
Although the Cybertruck was the fifth top-selling EV in the US last year, it didn’t even crack the top ten in March. It placed ninth through the first three months of 2025, behind the Volkswagen ID.4.
While Tesla and Ford remained the leaders in the electric pickup market, several new models are gaining momentum. According to the most recent numbers from Cox Automotive, GM sold 2,383 Chevy Silverado EVs and 1,249 GMC Sierra EV models in Q1. Meanwhile, Rivian sold 1,727 R1Ts during the quarter.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that new models, including the Honda Prologue and Chevy Blazer EV, helped drive EV registrations up 20% in the US in March.
Although the Lightning reclaimed the crown from Tesla, Ford’s electric pickup isn’t exactly flying off the lot. Ford reported Lightning sales fell 16% to just 1,740 units in April. Through April 2025, Ford has sold 8,927 electric trucks, down 9% from the 9,833 it handed over last year.
Electrek’s Take
To be fair, Tesla is still ahead by a wide margin in the US. The S&P numbers show Tesla had over 51,000 registrations in March, up 1% after two months of lower YOY growth.
GM’s Chevy surpassed Ford to become the second-best-selling EV brand with nearly 8,500 registrations, an increase of 274% from last year. Ford dropped to third with 7,361 registrations.
Although it’s just one quarter, it’s starting to show how Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political antics are likely impacting sales. After the Cybertruck’s initial hype, it appears many buyers are opting for traditional pickups, like the F-150 Lighting.
Meanwhile, Ram is delaying its first electric pickup, the 1500 REV, again. Ram is pushing production back until summer 2027, saying it’s “extending the quality validation period.” The plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Ramcharger will also be delayed until the first quarter of 2026.
After pulling the Ramcharger ahead of the fully electric version last year, Stellantis blamed weak demand for EV pickups in the US.
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Environment
Podcast: EV tax credit on chopping block, Tesla’s China problem, Slate gets interest, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how the GOP plans to kill the EV tax credit, Tesla’s China problem, Slate getting some interest, and more.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):
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Tesla’s Austin robotaxi fleet will be powered by ‘plenty of teleoperation’ as it “can’t screw up”, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley after meeting with Tesla.
You won’t hear anything negative about Tesla from Morgan Stanley very often.
Morgan Stanley’s Tesla analyst, Adam Jonas, has often been described as a ‘Tesla cheerleader’ on Wall Street for his extremely rosy view of the company. He generally believes whatever Elon Musk claims and adds a slight delay to the CEO’s timeline.
Recently, Jonas met with Tesla with some clients and released a new note that he hinted to be based on what he learned from Tesla during the meeting.
He claims that the planned “robotaxi” rollout in Austin next month is going to use “plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels”:
Austin’s a ‘go’ but fleet size will be low. Think 10 to 20 cars. Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele ops to ensure safety levels (“we can’t screw up”). Still waiting for a date.
‘Tele ops’ stands for teleoperations, meaning that Tesla employees will be able to remotely access Tesla’s vehicles and operate them in some capacity.
Last year, Electrek reported that Tesla started hiring for this teleoperation team before the Robotaxi launch in Austin.
We have been extensively reporting on how much Tesla’s planned robotaxi fleet in Austin diverges from its previously disclosed plans of deploying “unsupervised Full Self-Driving” in its consumer vehicles.
Tesla plans to deploy “10-20” Model Y vehicles to offer ride-hailling services in a geo-fenced area of Austin, Texas using a version of its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ (FSD), but instead of being supervised by a driver inside the vehicle, like the current product in consumer vehicles, Tesla is going to used employees to remotely supervise the vehicles.
The service is supposed to launch in June.
Electrek’s Take
I seriously don’t get why anyone could get excited about this. It is going to be a bit better than the current FSD, which has stalled for months as Tesla focuses on optimizing the system for Austin, but it will still basically be supervised – just remotely.
There’s a chance that it won’t even be remote as some believe Tesla will even fumble that timeline and use safety drivers, but I don’t know. I’m about 50/50 on that prediction right now.
Remote supervisors make more sense as Tesla can claim a little victory even though it would be less impressive than what Waymo has been doing for years.
The real goal that Tesla sold to consumers is that their privately owned vehicles would become self-driving without supervision and we are still so far from that. It’s clear that this project is mainly to distract them from that fact.
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