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Welcome to Sunday issue of the Boba Brief Newsletter. This is last 24hrs in crypto, macro, ai, tech world and little added topic with my thoughts.
UPCOMING BOBA to keep and eye on
India’s IPO market is heating up with NSE and Jio IPO coming EOY
CRYPTO Brief
Aave founder Stani said Aave V4 could bring securities finance onchain, per cointelegraph.
Europe will be banning cash payments above 10,000 euro for Bitcoin transactions; will need identity verification starting 2027.
VISA is bullish on crypto and Bitcoin, says it will boom like e-commerce did in the 1990s.
According to Decrypt, 5 public Solana treasury firm hold more than $1 billion in SOL. Solana now has surpassed both Kraken and Coinbase in weekly spot volume.
MACRO & AI Brief
Japan is targeting $2.3 trillion in AI chips and space investment by 2040.
John Jumper, the co-creator of AlphaFold is leaving Google DeepMind to join Anthropic.
Perplexity just launched Brain, a self improving memory system for AI agents; read more.
Charles Schwab partnering with Cboe to enter S&P 500 prediction market; joined Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood & Polymarket.
Midjourney is pivoting from AI images to Medical Imaging, to have a better MRI alternative.
TOP COINS in last 24hrs
Aerodrome Finance, Hyperliquid, Backpack, Biconomy, Wojak, Solana and more
COINS I am watching
HYPE $69
BITCOIN $63,000
XRP $1.14
BIG BOBA BRIEF OF THE WEEK
India is about to list two of the most consequential companies in Asia - NSE and JIO IPOs
On June 17, India's National Stock Exchange NSE; the world's largest derivatives exchange by volume, formally filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with SEBI.
On June 19, Mukesh Ambani stood up at Reliance Industries' annual general meeting and announced that Jio Platforms had filed its DRHP the same day.
Two filings, four days apart; both targeting listings before December 2026.
Together they could add over $250 billion in new public market value to Indian equities, more than the GDP of Portugal.
$70B NSE implied valuation in unlisted market; ₹5.8 lakh crore
$180B Jio maximum valuation estimate; Jefferies, Nov 2025
524M Jio subscribers; one of the largest user bases in the world
The National Stock Exchange of India
Expected valuation ₹5 lakh cr+
IPO size (OFS) ₹25,000–30,000 cr
Expected listing Oct–Nov 2026
FY26 revenue ₹16,601 cr
FY26 PAT ₹10,302 cr
PAT margin 62.9%
For context:
NSE is the world's largest derivatives exchange by number of contracts traded; ahead of CME Group, Intercontinental Exchange and Eurex. It handles more derivatives volume than any exchange anywhere on Earth. It is also the third-largest equity exchange globally and until this week, it was entirely private.
1992, NSE was founded. Begins operations in 1994; first fully electronic exchange in India, ends open-outcry trading in the country.
Co-location scandal emerges. Allegations that certain brokers had unfair early access to market data. SEBI investigations begin and IPO plans were put on hold indefinitely.
March 2026, SEBI regulatory unlock. New rules allow companies valued above ₹5 lakh crore to list with just 2.5% public float, removing the structural barrier to NSE's IPO.
March 2026, 20 investment banks appointed. Kotak Mahindra Capital, JM Financial, Axis Capital, Morgan Stanley India, JP Morgan India, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Citi among the lead managers. This is the largest banking consortium ever assembled for an Indian IPO.
June 17, 2026, DRHP filed with SEBI. 148.9 million shares offered; approximately 6% dilution and listing is targeted for Oct–Nov 2026 festive window.
CME Group; the world's largest derivatives exchange by value, trades at roughly 25x earnings. The London Stock Exchange Group trades at 30x. If NSE prices even at a discount to global peers, the valuation math points to ₹5 lakh crore or above; making it one of India's most valuable listed companies from day one.
JIO PLATFORMS LIMITED
Valuation range $133–145B
IPO size (fresh) ~$4B / ₹37,700 cr
Float ~2.5% equity
Subscribers 524.4 million
5G subscribers 268 million
Proceeds use Debt repayment + AI infra
For context:
Jio Platforms is India's largest digital services company; it happens to own the telecom network that onboarded 500 million Indians to the internet. When Mukesh Ambani launched Jio in 2016 with free voice calls and near-free data, he didn't just disrupt Indian telecom; he collapsed prices so dramatically that India now has the cheapest mobile data in the world, averaging $0.09 per GB compared to $6-$8 in the US. That price disruption brought hundreds of millions of Indians online for the first time. Those hundreds of millions are now Jio's customer base for everything else; payments, streaming, enterprise tech, and increasingly, AI.
2016, Jio launches with free calls and near-free data. Collapses Indian telecom market overnight, captures 500 million subscribers in record time.
2020, Facebook invests $5.7B for 9.99% stake. Google invests $4.5B, KKR, Silver Lake, Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority among 13 global investors pumping in $20 billion total; valuing Jio at $65 billion before revenue really scaled.
March 2026, Government regulatory unlock. Securities Contracts Amendment allows companies above ₹5 lakh crore to list at 2.5% float, clearing the path for Jio's structure. Reliance shifts from OFS to 100% fresh issue after valuation disagreement with shareholders.
April 2026, Management confirms IPO is "imminent" on FY26 earnings call. Market interprets as filing within weeks.
June 2026, DRHP filed with SEBI. Announced by Mukesh Ambani at RIL's 49th AGM. "A deeply emotional moment." Akash, Isha, and Anant Ambani confirmed as leading the listing process and listing is expected later in 2026 post-SEBI review.
Jefferies pegged Jio at $180 billion in November 2025, Elara Capital valued it at ₹12–13 lakh crore ($144–156 billion) based on 13x FY28 EV/EBITDA. At $133 billion and 2.5% float, the lower end; Jio raises approximately $3.3 billion. At $180 billion- $4.5 billion. A successful listing would make Jio immediately one of the three most valuable listed companies in India by market cap; behind only Reliance Industries itself and TCS.
India is the world's fastest growing major economy and it just opened its two most important financial institutions to global capital. India's GDP is projected to grow at 6.5-7% in 2026. Foreign institutional investors have been underweight India for years waiting for more liquid large-cap opportunities. NSE and Jio listing simultaneously gives them two new entry points into the fastest growing consumption story in the world.
Jio's 524 million subscribers are the largest untapped crypto and digital finance audience on earth. JioFinance; Jio's financial services platform, already handles payments for hundreds of millions of Indians. The jump from mobile payments to crypto-adjacent products is not theoretical. India's crypto user base grew 40% in 2025 to over 110 million users; the second largest in the world. When Jio's financial infrastructure goes public and has access to fresh capital for digital expansion, that timeline accelerates. Do you see the co-relation how JIO jumpstarted everything in India?
While on the other hand, NSE has been actively exploring blockchain-based settlement infrastructure since 2023. An NSE listing forces the exchange into full public accountability and accelerates institutional pressure to modernize settlement systems. India's SEBI is also one of the most active regulators globally on digital asset frameworks. An NSE with public shareholders and quarterly reporting has different incentives to move on tokenized securities than a private exchange did.
But what the headlines aren't saying
NSE's colocation case is still open
Jio's valuation at $133–180 billion is being driven by projections, not current earnings
NSE's derivative volumes are under pressure
Jio's debt load is significant; the IPO's primary purpose is debt repayment, not growth investment
NSE is a infrastructure play that doesn’t need to grow dramatically to justify its valuation; it needs to maintain monopoly position in India derivatives market and continue converting. And Jio is a growth story, where you will be buying not just a telecom company but a bet on whether 524 million Indian subscribers become a platform for AI services, financial products, enterprise tech and digital commerce over the next decade.
But in four days this week, India quietly filed two IPOs that together could represent over $250 billion in new public market value.
Nothing i write or share is financial advice (NFA)
BOBA BRIEF
