After the blockbuster listings of Circle and Blish in 2025, crypto exchanges rushed toward the public markets with a familiar promise: The industry was finally mature enough for Wall Street. However, Professor Kaiko’s latest research shows that it is not so simple.
The wave of crypto exchange IPOs was supposed to prove that the crypto industry has graduated from a speculative boomtown to a legitimate financial infrastructure. These companies have hired Wall Street bankers, appointed compliance officers, and refined their pitch decks to emphasize regulated platforms, a regular flow of institutional investors, and revenue streams sufficiently diversified to survive bear markets.
However, Kaiko’s analysis found that exchanges’ trading activity, investor appetite, and public market valuations are all still tied to Bitcoin prices in ways that most of these exchanges try to hide.
As Bitcoin rises, trading volumes soar, listings increase, and Wall Street generously rewards the sector. However, if Bitcoin stalls or reverses, exchange revenue expectations will quickly compress and the infrastructure narrative will lose its audience.
A central question for those investing in crypto IPOs in 2026 is whether Bitcoin can generate sustainable returns when it is not cooperating.
Year the IPO window reopened
To understand why exchanges are rushing to go public now, it helps to understand how much better 2025 was from afar.
Circle priced its mega IPO in June 2025 at $31 per share, raising $1.05 billion and valuing the stablecoin issuer at approximately $8 billion on a fully diluted basis. The company’s stock price soared on its New York Stock Exchange debut, and the reception sent a clear signal. Institutional investors are willing to take exposure to regulated cryptocurrencies and are not particularly sensitive to valuations.
The company continued its bullish stance in August, setting an above-range price of $37 per share, raising more than $1.1 billion and debuting at a total valuation of nearly $13.2 billion. Bankers were making a real pitch: with improved regulation and deeper institutional participation, crypto companies were no longer the fringe upstarts that defined previous cycles.
The enthusiasm was real, and so were the numbers behind it. But the boom masked structural problems that tend to cause IPO markets to postpone until the inevitable earnings season. In other words, can exchanges maintain profitability when the underlying assets that drive all of their trading activity decide to go dormant?
Gemini gave us an answer to that question, but it turned out to be a very unpleasant one.
In September 2025, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss raised Gemini’s IPO price range, targeting a valuation of up to $3.08 billion, reflecting true investor demand during the crypto rally. By early 2026, shareholder lawsuits emerged alleging that investors were misled regarding the IPO period. The company had announced 25% layoffs, an exit from the market and expected a significant annual loss, with its stock plummeting more than 75% from its $28 IPO price.
as crypto slate As reported at the time of filing, Gemini had already disclosed a net loss of $282.5 million in the first half of 2025 alone. This showed how quickly companies can go from an oversubscribed listing to a Bitcoin cycle loss when sentiment reverses.
The mechanism behind this reversal is worth understanding as it applies to all exchanges in the current queue. Cryptocurrency exchanges account for the vast majority of revenue when people trade, and Bitcoin continues to drive the conditions that make people want to trade. The rise in Bitcoin is causing retail excitement, institutional redeployment, altcoin speculation, and increased volatility across asset classes, all of which feed directly into exchange fee income.
If Bitcoin stalls, volumes will be compressed across the industry, and the fee income that justifies premium valuations will start to look much smaller. While public market pitches position exchanges as neutral infrastructures that collect fees regardless of market direction, the operational reality is that many still rely on the most emotionally driven financial assets to attract users.
Bitcoin as an underwriter
Kraken’s own IPO schedule is also a good example of this.
The exchange secretly filed for a U.S. listing in November 2025, with a target date of Q1 2026, and was recently valued at $20 billion after a capital increase involving Jane Street and Citadel Securities. crypto slate Its own report frames the company as having matured into a disciplined financial institution, supported by Q3 2025 revenue of $648 million, adjusted EBITDA of $178.6 million, and platform trading volume of $576.8 billion. These are all record numbers achieved during a period of high Bitcoin activity and good cryptocurrency sentiment.
However, by March 2026; Reuters Kraken has reportedly frozen its IPO plans, with sources suggesting the company may reconsider going public if market conditions improve. Kraken’s delay turns the entire IPO wave into a referendum on whether the window should continue to open on its own terms or whether Bitcoin’s direction should continue to be the deciding factor.
The most important analytical distinction introduced by Wave 2025 is that between Circle and crypto exchanges. That’s because Wall Street could end up valuing the two at very different prices.
Circle’s business is tied to stablecoin distribution, interest income from reserves backing USDC, and payments infrastructure, all of which revenue streams are largely separate from trading volume growth and Bitcoin-driven volatility.
Exchanges are structurally different, with returns that fluctuate depending on cryptocurrency market activity rather than a fixed rate of return. Infrastructure companies like CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange enjoy premium multiples precisely because their returns persist across market cycles.
Crypto exchanges are now demanding equal treatment while running businesses that would fail if Bitcoin lost momentum. The next phase of public market listings for cryptocurrencies may separate stablecoin infrastructure companies, which can plausibly claim CME-like return characteristics, from exchange operators, whose return profile is likely to be highly cyclical when conditions deteriorate.
Retail investors revalue stocks every trading day, which is a particular challenge exchanges face when listing. Private capital has leeway to survive the winter. Ordinary shareholders tend not to do so. Exchanges that survive quarterly earnings scrutiny will be those that can demonstrate truly diversified revenue across derivatives, custody, institutional services, and staking, rather than relying on spot volume to operate their business.
The wave of crypto exchange IPOs is still going strong, but it is no longer enough for exchanges to claim they survived the last bear market. Retail investors want proof that they can earn on their next investment. Until that proof exists in audited quarterly reports, Bitcoin will remain the underwriter, market maker, and ultimate judge of the sector, whether Wall Street likes it or not.
(Tag to translate) Bitcoin
