Public markets are starting to price crypto the way they price other financial infrastructure: on recurring revenue, predictable margins and regulatory durability rather than narrative-driven growth or token speculation. That shift shows up across three linked trends — product mix, capital flows and the types of companies that are choosing public listings — and it’s remapping what “crypto growth” looks like.

Product mix: custody, payments, stablecoins and compliance
The wave of new listings and fundraising rounds is dominated by firms that perform plumbing functions: custody providers, payments processors that settle on-chain and off-chain, regulated stablecoin issuers, and compliance tooling that automates KYC/AML and audit trails. These services generate contractually recurring fees, high gross margins on secure custody, or float-like economics in stablecoin programs. Compared with exchanges chasing volumes or token projects chasing narratives, infrastructure companies offer cash flows that institutional investors can underwrite.

Capital flows reflect revenue discipline
Venture capital followed the macro signal. VC investment rose to about $19.7 billion in 2025, concentrated in companies that can point to revenue and unit economics rather than purely user metrics. Late-stage rounds are larger and priced on multiples of revenue or EBITDA guidance; early-stage checks are increasingly conditional on traction toward compliance certifications and institutional integrations. That reallocation of capital reduces dependency on hype cycles and increases runway for firms building durable platforms.

Public market behavior: steady listings, muted volatility
Where earlier crypto IPOs were exploratory and headline-grabbing, recent listings read more like classical fintech: custody firms, payments rails and stablecoin issuers going public with S-1s focused on revenue composition, customer concentration and regulatory status. Major firms such as BitGo and Ledger — among others — have announced or completed public transactions, and the market reaction has been measured. Listings for infrastructure players trade with lower intraday volatility and tighter bid-ask spreads than token-centric debuts, reflecting an investor base that includes pension funds and asset managers with explicit mandates around compliance and liquidity.

Mechanics that matter for valuation
Infrastructure businesses bring clearer comparables: custody fees per AUM, per-transaction take rates for payments rails, seigniorage and treasury income for regulated stablecoins, and subscription or per-scan pricing for compliance tooling. These metrics make EBITDA margins and free cash flow forecasts legible. Underwriting standards are adjusting accordingly — lock-ups, earnouts and IPO disclosure now prioritize regulatory roadmaps and contracts with institutional counterparties over user growth headcounts.

Regulation moves from risk to product enabler
Regulatory scrutiny, once framed chiefly as a risk, is becoming a competitive moat for firms that can operationalize compliance. Licensing, certified custody, and auditable reserve mechanisms are now product features that facilitate bank partnerships, prime-broker relationships and custody mandates. Instead of avoiding regulation, leading firms are designing products to meet it, which in turn accelerates integration with legacy finance.

Implications for market structure and liquidity
As infrastructure firms accumulate long-term institutional contracts and predictable flows, liquidity profiles for their securities change. Investors price them with lower betas and longer duration assumptions, and secondary market behavior shifts away from short-term event-driven swings toward valuation driven by renewal rates, fee compression risk and regulatory changes. That changes incentive structures within companies: product roadmaps prioritize reliability, compliance engineering and margin protection over viral growth hacks

Source reporting on these developments and the shifting tone of crypto IPO activity is summarized here: https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2026/crypto-ipos-are-getting-boring-and-thats-the-point/