by Coinstrooper Crypto Articles
Quick Take
  • Crypto companies are entering public markets at a time when investors are asking harder questions about how these businesses actually make money.
  • A listed crypto company cannot rely only on adoption, user growth, or a strong brand.
  • Public equity investors want to see revenue quality, margins, reserves, governance, client asset protection, and performance across weaker market cycles.
  • That shift is changing how the industry is judged.

What Happened

Crypto companies are entering public markets at a time when investors are asking harder questions about how these businesses actually make money.

A listed crypto company cannot rely only on adoption, user growth, or a strong brand. Public equity investors want to see revenue quality, margins, reserves, governance, client asset protection, and performance across weaker market cycles.

Going public can give a crypto company more visibility. It can also make the business easier for traditional investors to track. But shareholders and token holders are often exposed to different economics.

This distinction is becoming more important as more crypto firms move toward public markets. Investors need to understand whether they are buying a company’s earnings power, a token’s utility, or broader exposure to crypto sentiment.

“Pension funds will be able to buy shares of crypto companies, but only if the rating of those shares matches the fund’s investment policy. For such large financial institutions, the asset’s rating matters a lot because they can’t afford to lose their depositors’ money,” he said.

“That’s why it’s easier for them to invest in US Treasuries at 3% annually than to stake USDT at 5.5%,” Efimenko said.

Market Context

That shift is changing how the industry is judged. Exchanges, stablecoin issuers, miners, custody firms, data companies, and Bitcoin treasury businesses are all being measured against public-market expectations.

Anton Efimenko, Co-Founder and Lead Expert at 8Blocks, said token holders should not assume an IPO will directly support token prices.

“Unfortunately, an IPO itself doesn’t really give anything to the crypto community. Many tokens are not tied to the issuer’s business. So even if the company goes public and reports strong annual profit, its token doesn’t have to increase in value. The token price won’t necessarily follow the stock price,” Efimenko said.

A listed share represents ownership in the company. A token may reflect access, governance, network activity, or market sentiment. Those links are often indirect.

The experts were most confident about exchanges and stablecoin issuers as public-market businesses.

Fernando Lillo Aranda, CMO at Zoomex, said stablecoin companies have the strongest structural position because their revenue can become more recurring and less dependent on trading volumes.

“Stablecoin infrastructure is the strongest structural position. This model benefits from network effects, float economics, payments expansion, and increasingly becoming financial rails rather than pure crypto businesses. Revenue can become more recurring and less dependent on trading cycles,” Aranda said.

Why It Matters

BeInCrypto spoke with Anton Efimenko, Co-Founder and Lead Expert at 8Blocks; Fernando Lillo Aranda, CMO at Zoomex; and Federico Variola, CEO of Phemex, about how IPOs and listings reshape expectations for crypto businesses.

Institutional Access Still Depends on Risk Rules

Public listings can make crypto exposure easier for pension funds, banks, and asset managers. Some institutions cannot hold tokens directly, but they may be able to buy shares in a listed exchange, miner, stablecoin issuer, or custody company.

Many institutions may still choose lower-yielding traditional assets over crypto-native returns if the risk profile is clearer.

Tokenized Treasuries could create a middle ground. They may allow institutions to use digital asset systems while relying on the rating of the underlying government debt.

“But once Treasuries become tokenized assets, pension funds may be able to hold them on their balance sheets based on the rating of the underlying asset,” he said.

Stablecoin issuers can benefit from reserve income, payments growth, and wider institutional use. Their challenge is scrutiny around reserves, regulation, and concentration risk.

Details

A Listed Company Does Not Automatically Lift Its Token

He added: “An IPO can bring visibility to the issuer, but it doesn’t guarantee profit for token holders.”

Efimenko said institutional access still depends on ratings and internal policy.

Exchanges and Stablecoin Issuers Have the Clearest Case