Circle executives cashed out at a high level and sold early while the stock price soared 349%

While investors are still scrambling to snap up this week's hot cryptocurrency IPOs, executives at stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL. N) have been scrambling to reap the company's stunning gains since it went public. Circle on Tuesday announced the sale of 10 million shares at current market prices (2 million from the company and the rest from shareholders including CEO Jeremy Allaire), cashing out about $1.40 billion. The two-day placement was oversubscribed and pricing is expected to be completed on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter. Shares in the company, which went public in early June, have surged 349 percent so far, and earlier this week delivered stellar quarterly results. The sale came much earlier than expected - just two months before Circle went public and well before the end of the year lock-up period. But JPMorgan Chase, the lead underwriter of the IPO and the arbiter of lock-up waivers, did not stop the sell-off. "It was a reasonable arbitrage," said Joseph Schuster, founder of IPOX, a Chicago-based IPO research firm. "The risk was passed on to the public markets."