Five of the six crypto firms that filed for U.S. initial public offerings in 2025 and early 2026 have paused or delayed their listings. Kraken, Ledger, Consensys, Grayscale, and — until this week — Blockchain.com sat on the sidelines as investor capital rotated into AI infrastructure offerings le...
"Appetite has been sold to AI." — Unnamed crypto IPO banker, as reported by Sherwood News, September 2026
Five of the six crypto firms that filed for U.S. initial public offerings in 2025 and early 2026 have paused or delayed their listings. Kraken, Ledger, Consensys, Grayscale, and — until this week — Blockchain.com sat on the sidelines as investor capital rotated into AI infrastructure offerings led by SpaceX's $86 billion debut. Only BitGo completed its listing, and its stock has since fallen 57% from its first trade.
On September 28, Blockchain.com broke the silence, telling prospective investors it plans to raise $500 million at a $4 billion to $6 billion valuation — less than half its 2022 peak of $14 billion. The filing tests whether the crypto IPO window has reopened or whether Blockchain.com is simply willing to accept the markdown that its peers will not.
The data is unambiguous: every crypto stock that listed in the past 13 months trades below its debut price. Gemini (GEMI) is down 89% from its September 2025 first trade. BitGo (BTGO) sits 57% below its January 2026 opening. Bullish (BLSH), which raised $1.1 billion in August 2025, trades at roughly $36, down from an intraday debut high near $118. Circle (CRCL), the sole relative performer, trades at $83 — 72% below its all-time high of $263, though above its $31 IPO price. The post-listing destruction has chilled the entire pipeline.
Blockchain.com Group Holdings Inc. filed a confidential draft S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 21, 2026. On September 28, according to Bloomberg, the company began telling prospective investors it targets a $500 million raise at a $4 billion to $6 billion valuation, with a listing before year-end.
The company claims 95 million wallets, 43 million verified users, and $1.1 trillion in lifetime transaction volume. It reports adjusted profitability for three consecutive years, though detailed financial statements remain sealed inside the confidential filing. No underwriters have been publicly named.
The target valuation marks a steep decline from the $14 billion the company reached during its March 2022 Series E. A subsequent $110 million raise in November 2023 valued the firm at less than $7 billion. The current $4 billion to $6 billion ask concedes a further reduction.
Founded in 2011 by Peter Smith, Blockchain.com is one of the oldest operating crypto firms. It offers exchange, wallet, trading, and lending services from its London headquarters with approximately 500 employees.
The 2026 crypto IPO pipeline was, at the start of the year, expected to be the sector's largest. At least six major firms had filed or were preparing filings. By September, the pipeline had frozen:
| Company | Status | Filed | Target Valuation | Current Status | |---------|--------|-------|-----------------|----------------| | Kraken (Payward) | Paused | Nov 2025 (confidential) | ~$13.3B (secondary sale, Apr 2026) | On hold since Mar 2026 | | Ledger | Paused | Confidential filing | Not disclosed | Hired Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Barclays; shelved | | Consensys | Delayed | Planned Feb 2026 filing | ~$7B | Pushed to fall 2026; splitting MetaMask into separate entity | | Grayscale | Delayed | Nov 2025 (S-1 filed, ticker GRAY) | Not disclosed | Unlikely before Q4 2026 | | Blockchain.com | Active | May 2026 (confidential) | $4B–$6B | Targeting year-end listing | | BitGo | Completed | 2025 | $212.8M raised at $18/share | Trading at ~$7.81 (Sep 2026) |
Kraken's parent Payward paused its listing in March 2026, citing difficult market conditions. A secondary share sale to Deutsche Börse in April valued the exchange at $13.3 billion, roughly a third below the $20 billion mark from its prior funding round.
Ledger, the French hardware wallet maker, shelved its U.S. IPO after hiring Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays to advise. No new timeline has been provided.
Consensys, the MetaMask parent led by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, engaged JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for its offering but pushed the target to fall 2026 at the earliest. In September, the firm announced it would split MetaMask into a separate company by late 2026, adding structural complexity to any near-term listing.
Grayscale filed its S-1 on November 13, 2025, planning to list under the ticker GRAY on the NYSE. The company has since indicated a restart is unlikely before Q4 2026, citing softer investor demand, Bitcoin volatility, and reduced trading volumes that pressure its fee-based revenue model.
The performance of crypto stocks that did make it to market explains why the pipeline froze. Across the board, post-listing returns have been negative for debut-day buyers:
| Company | Ticker | Listing Date | Debut Price | Recent Price (Sep 2026) | Change | |---------|--------|-------------|-------------|------------------------|--------| | Circle | CRCL | Jun 2025 | $31 (IPO) / $82.84 (close) | ~$83 | +168% from IPO; −68% from ATH ($263) | | Bullish | BLSH | Aug 2025 | ~$80 (close) | ~$36 | −55% | | Gemini | GEMI | Sep 2025 | ~$37 (debut) | ~$4.19 | −89% | | BitGo | BTGO | Jan 2026 | $18 (IPO) | ~$7.81 | −57% |
Circle is the sole exception measured from IPO pricing — its $31 offering price has more than doubled. However, the stock reached $263 on June 23, 2025, just 18 days after listing, and has since fallen 68% from that peak. Investors who bought at or near the all-time high are deeply underwater.
Gemini's collapse has been the most severe. The Winklevoss-founded exchange opened at approximately $37 per share and now trades near $4.19. Its second-quarter trading revenue dropped 38% year-over-year to $12.5 million, spot trading volume fell to $3.8 billion, and custodied assets declined from $18.2 billion to $8.4 billion, according to CoinDesk. Its market capitalization has shrunk from roughly $4 billion at peak to $753 million.
BitGo, the first crypto IPO of 2026, priced above its marketed range at $18 per share, raising $212.8 million. The stock reached $18.49 on its second day and has not returned. It traded at $7.81 as of September 21.
The crypto IPO freeze did not occur in isolation. It coincided with an unprecedented concentration of investor appetite in artificial intelligence.
SpaceX listed on June 12, 2026 on the Nasdaq, raising approximately $86 billion and achieving a market value near $1.8 trillion — the largest IPO in financial market history. Anthropic is reportedly eyeing a valuation near $1 trillion for a late-2026 listing. OpenAI remains in the pipeline.
According to a Sherwood News analysis, the rotation was explicit: institutional allocators moved capital from digital asset exposure to AI infrastructure, treating the two sectors as competing for the same risk-appetite budget. The 11 crypto IPOs that raised a combined $14.6 billion in 2025 now look modest against a single AI listing that raised six times that amount.
The consequence is structural. Public listings define which sectors investors believe will shape the next decade. In 2026, that narrative has become AI infrastructure, not crypto rails — regardless of the underlying maturation of stablecoins, tokenized assets, and blockchain settlement systems.
Every deferred crypto IPO shares a common feature: the private-market valuation the company reached during 2021–2022 now exceeds what public markets are willing to pay.
Blockchain.com's $14 billion peak has compressed to a $4 billion to $6 billion ask. Kraken's $20 billion private-round valuation has dropped to $13.3 billion in secondary trading. Consensys targeted approximately $7 billion. Grayscale has not disclosed a target, but the pause suggests internal marks have deteriorated.
This compression reflects two forces. First, the crypto market's aggregate trading volume and fee revenue have declined from 2021 peaks. Second, public-market comparables — particularly Coinbase (COIN), which traded between $150 and $260 in 2026 — set a ceiling on what institutional investors will pay for crypto exchange and infrastructure exposure.
The result is a standoff. Founders and early investors are reluctant to accept the markdown. Public markets are unwilling to pay the private-round price. The firms that listed — BitGo, Gemini, Bullish — demonstrate what happens when that gap is not resolved: post-listing declines that destroy value for IPO participants.
Blockchain.com's decision to proceed where others have not rests on a narrow argument: adjusted profitability for three consecutive years.
Among the deferred or completed crypto IPOs, consistent profitability is rare. Gemini's post-listing financials showed declining revenue and asset bases. BitGo raised capital but has not reported sustained profitability publicly. Consensys relies partly on MetaMask transaction fees, the volume of which is correlated to Ethereum activity.
Blockchain.com's 95 million wallets and 43 million verified users provide a large user base, though the economic value of that base — revenue per user, retention rates, active-to-registered ratio — will only become clear when the S-1 is made public. The $1.1 trillion lifetime volume figure spans more than a decade of operation and does not indicate current run-rate throughput.
The company's willingness to accept a $4 billion to $6 billion valuation — a 57% to 71% discount to its 2022 peak — may itself be the most significant signal. It suggests management believes the IPO window could close further and that taking a haircut now is preferable to continued uncertainty.
The crypto IPO freeze has three measurable consequences.
Liquidity for early investors is constrained. Venture capital firms that invested in crypto infrastructure between 2020 and 2022 face extended holding periods. Without public exits, fund returns remain unrealized, which in turn reduces new capital allocation to crypto venture deals.
Public-market price discovery is limited. With only four crypto-native stocks actively trading (CRCL, BLSH, GEMI, BTGO), investors have limited options for public crypto equity exposure beyond Coinbase and MicroStrategy. This concentrates flows and amplifies the correlation between crypto equity performance and Bitcoin price movement.
The regulatory tailwind is going unused. The SEC's August 2026 proposed "Regulation Crypto Assets" — which includes a $75 million fundraising exemption and a conditional safe harbor from the "investment contract" definition — was designed to reduce barriers for crypto firms accessing public capital. The GENIUS Act stablecoin framework is in progress. Yet the firms best positioned to benefit from these frameworks are sitting out.
Blockchain.com's filing is a market test. If the company succeeds in raising $500 million before year-end, it may signal that the IPO window is reopening for firms willing to accept post-peak valuations. If it does not — or if the listing is withdrawn or downsized — it will confirm that the crypto IPO market remains effectively closed.
The underlying tension is not about crypto's product maturity. Stablecoins have reached $200 billion in supply. Tokenized asset markets are expanding. Settlement infrastructure is increasingly adopted by banks and exchanges. The problem is narrower: public investors have been burned by every recent crypto listing, and their capital is currently pointed at AI.
Whether that rotation is permanent or cyclical will determine when the next wave of crypto IPOs reaches the market. The data available in September 2026 suggests it will not be soon.