The largest wave of crypto initial public offerings in industry history has produced catastrophic losses for public-market investors. Six major digital-asset companies that listed between May 2025 and January 2026 — Circle, Bullish, Gemini, eToro, Figure, and BitGo — are trading an average 53% be...
"The market may not meaningfully reopen for crypto listings until next year." — Christian Lopez, Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets, Cohen & Company Capital Markets
The largest wave of crypto initial public offerings in industry history has produced catastrophic losses for public-market investors. Six major digital-asset companies that listed between May 2025 and January 2026 — Circle, Bullish, Gemini, eToro, Figure, and BitGo — are trading an average 53% below their first-day opening prices as of July 10, 2026. Gemini leads the decline at 89%, followed by BitGo at 71% and Bullish at 72%.
The damage extends beyond stock prices. Gemini faces a securities fraud class action. BitGo announced a 15% workforce reduction in June. The IPO pipeline is frozen: Kraken parent Payward, Consensys, Ledger, and Grayscale have all postponed listing plans indefinitely. According to CoinDesk reporting on July 8, 2026, the crypto IPO market has stalled as capital rotates to AI-sector equities and macro uncertainty weighs on investor appetite for risk assets.
The total crypto market capitalization fell from $4.3 trillion in October 2025 to approximately $2.0 trillion by late June 2026 — a $2.3 trillion contraction. Bitcoin dropped 50% from its $126,198 all-time high. The IPO class amplified this cycle with leverage: companies that went public into the exact month the broader market topped experienced three consecutive red quarters immediately after, compounded by fee compression across the exchange sector.
The 2025 crypto IPO wave raised an estimated $14.6 billion across at least 11 offerings. The six largest listings and their performance as of July 10, 2026:
| Company | Ticker | IPO Date | Open Price | Current Price | Decline | |---------|--------|----------|-----------|---------------|---------| | Gemini | GEMI | Sep 2025 | $37.01 | $4.19 | -89% | | BitGo | BTGO | Jan 2026 | $22.43 | $5.30 | -71% | | Bullish | BLSH | H2 2025 | $90.00 | $25.57 | -72% | | eToro | ETOR | May 2025 | $69.69 | $39.28 | -44% | | Figure | FIGR | H2 2025 | $36.00 | $32.79 | -9% | | Circle | CRCL | H1 2025 | $69.00 | $66.12 | -4% |
Gemini (GEMI): The worst performer. Opened at $37.01 in September 2025, soared intraday to $46, settled at $32. By July 2026, shares trade at $4.19. The Winklevoss twins' exchange announced a corporate pivot to "Gemini 2.0" on February 5, 2026, disclosing a shift to prediction markets, exits from the UK and Australia, and a 25% workforce cut. Twelve days later, its COO, CFO, and Chief Legal Officer departed simultaneously. Loss per share reached $6.78. Expenses jumped 70%.
BitGo (BTGO): 2026's first and only crypto IPO. Priced at $18 in January, raised $212.8 million. First-day close: $18.49. Current: $5.30. Goldman Sachs lowered its price target to $7.75 in late June. The company announced a 15% workforce reduction and now faces multiple securities class action lawsuits. BitGo is the only crypto firm to complete an IPO in 2026.
Bullish (BLSH): The Peter Thiel-backed exchange listed in 2025 at $90 and traded as high as $118. Now at $25.57. Despite operational success — spot trading volume hit $76 billion in February 2026, giving it 5.06% market share and briefly surpassing Coinbase — the stock has not recovered. Its $4.2 billion acquisition of transfer agent Equiniti, announced May 5, 2026, represents a strategic pivot to tokenized securities infrastructure. Closing expected January 2027.
eToro (ETOR): The Israeli fintech opened at $69.69 in May 2025, now trades near $39.28, down 44%. Market capitalization sits at $3.17 billion. Assets under administration reached $20.1 billion in May 2026, up 18%, but stock has not responded to operational metrics.
Figure (FIGR): The blockchain-native capital marketplace shows relative resilience, down only 9% from its $36 debut. Revenue grew 92% year-over-year with 50% adjusted EBITDA margin. Of the class, Figure is the sole company with fundamentals visibly supporting its valuation.
Circle (CRCL): The USDC stablecoin issuer listed at $69 and now trades at $66.12, down 4% — the best performer. Reached $263 all-time high in June 2025 before the broader selloff. Received final OCC approval to establish a national trust bank in 2026. ARK Investment purchased 218,000 shares. Circle's stablecoin-fee revenue model provides counter-cyclical characteristics absent in exchange-dependent businesses.
SpaceX's IPO on June 12, 2026 — raising $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation, making it the largest equity offering in financial history — crystallized the capital rotation problem. First-day market capitalization reached $2.1 trillion. For context, the entire cryptocurrency market was worth $2.0 trillion the same week.
According to Sherwood News reporting, "appetite has been sold to AI." Retail investors who once fueled crypto markets shifted attention to artificial intelligence and Magnificent 7 stocks. The AI IPO pipeline — including expected offerings from semiconductor companies SK Hynix and CXMT — continues to pull institutional growth capital away from digital assets.
Digital assets posted a third consecutive quarterly loss in Q2 2026, the longest losing streak since the 2022 bear market. Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded their largest quarterly outflow since launch. Stablecoin market capitalization contracted 2.4% ($7.7 billion) to $312 billion in June — the largest monthly decline since Terra's collapse in 2022.
The macro backdrop compounded the rotation: US-Iran military escalation beginning July 7, 2026 triggered $400 million in crypto liquidations. Bitcoin fell to $61,691 as oil surged past $72. Interest rate uncertainty and global deleveraging further reduced appetite for risk assets.
Gemini Securities Fraud Class Action: Methvin v. Gemini Space Station, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-02261, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleges Gemini made material misstatements in IPO documents, overstating the viability of its exchange platform and international scaling capacity. The lawsuit names founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. At the time of filing, GEMI traded at $5.96, already 78.7% below its $28 IPO price. Multiple law firms — Hagens Berman, Levi & Korsinsky, Schall Law — are competing to lead the class.
BitGo Litigation: BitGo faces investor lawsuits over post-IPO stock decline. Bloomberg Law reported the filings alleging insufficient disclosure of risks.
Workforce Reductions: Gemini cut 25% of staff in February 2026. BitGo cut 15% in June 2026. Both companies are operating under acute cost pressure as revenue declines with market volumes.
Companies that filed confidentially for IPOs but have paused or postponed:
Only Blockchain.com and FalconX are still visibly advancing toward listing. The rest of the pipeline is effectively frozen.
Coinbase (COIN), the sector's public-market benchmark, provides context. The stock hit an all-time high of $444.65 on July 18, 2025, dropped to $139.36 by February 12, 2026, and trades at $159.07 as of July 10, 2026 — a 64% decline from peak.
However, Coinbase's operational performance diverges from its stock: FY2025 total trading volume reached $5.2 trillion (up 156% year-over-year), and subscription/services revenue grew 23% to $2.8 billion. The company has a 13-year operating history, a diversified revenue base including staking and custody, and survived the 2022 bear cycle as a public company.
The 2025 IPO class lacks this track record. Companies went public during the market's euphoric peak — Bitcoin at $126,000 — and immediately faced a 50% drawdown. Public markets punished them more severely than Bitcoin itself, confirming that crypto equity is leveraged beta exposure to the underlying asset cycle.
Three structural factors explain the amplified losses:
1. Timing concentration risk. All six companies listed within an 8-month window (May 2025–January 2026) that coincided with the cycle top. No company had public-market experience navigating a bear phase. Investors in these IPOs received maximum cyclical exposure with zero downside track record.
2. Revenue model fragility. Four of six companies (Gemini, BitGo, Bullish, eToro) derive majority revenue from trading fees or transaction-based income — directly correlated to market volumes. When Bitcoin volumes fell 40%+ from peak, revenue collapsed proportionally while operating costs remained fixed. Circle's fee-on-reserves model and Figure's lending revenue proved more resilient.
3. The AI alternative. For the first time, growth-capital allocators had a competing narrative with immediate public-market liquidity. SpaceX at $2.1 trillion market cap on day one offered scale that no crypto listing could match. The opportunity cost of allocating to a $2 billion Gemini when an $86 billion SpaceX raise was weeks away proved decisive for institutional flows.
The 2025-2026 crypto IPO wave represents the most concentrated destruction of public-market value in the sector's history. Companies that listed at cycle euphoria — when Bitcoin traded at $126,000 and total crypto market cap stood at $4.3 trillion — now face a market at $2.0 trillion and Bitcoin at $62,000.
The pattern is structural, not idiosyncratic. Every exchange-focused company in the class has underperformed Bitcoin itself. The asset they were meant to provide exposure to fell 50%; their equities fell 70-89%. This confirms that crypto companies trading on public markets function as leveraged beta instruments — amplifying both upside and downside of the underlying digital-asset cycle.
The AI capital rotation adds a secular headwind absent in prior crypto cycles. In 2021, there was no competing growth narrative offering $75 billion single-day offerings. In 2026, there is. Until that dynamic reverses — or crypto enters its next accumulation phase — the IPO window remains closed.
The market is pricing in a view that crypto IPOs will not recover until Bitcoin itself establishes a new upward trend. Given the current $62,000 price and the stalled U.S. Bitcoin reserve initiative, that catalyst remains absent. The next window, according to multiple market participants, is late 2026 at the earliest.