When Circle’s shares opened on the New York Stock Exchange in June at $69, more than double their $31, it seemed like a validation. Investors paid for a regulated real-income stablecoin issuer, treating USDC rails as financial infrastructure rather than speculative cryptocurrency exposure.
Six months later, Circle is trading at $82.58, up almost 20% from its opening press. The thesis held.
The rest of the 2025 IPO class, however, told a different story. eToro, which debuted at $69.69, is now at $35.85, down 48.6%. Bullish fell from $90 to $43.20, a loss of 52%. Gemini, the Winklevoss-backed exchange that went public at $37.01, lost 70% of its value and was trading at $11.07 in mid-December.
Even Figment, the staking provider that gained 11.2% to $40.04, barely reached its launch price of $36.
Against Bitcoin’s 8.5% year-to-date decline to $85,620, the cohort’s performance looks less like a crypto stock triumph than a live stress test of how much risk investors will tolerate on top of the asset itself.
That spread matters because 2025 was supposed to be the coming out party for crypto stocks. Circle’s multibillion-dollar listing, HashKey’s 400x oversubscribed debut in Hong Kong, and a pipeline filled with Kraken, Consensys, and others shaped the year as proof that crypto infrastructure could command Wall Street multiples.
Instead, the scorecard reveals something more selective: Public markets will support crypto companies, but only if cash flows are defensible, regulations are clear, and the multitude does not assume continued bull market conditions.
What looked like an open window in June narrowed sharply in December, and the question for 2026 is whether that window remains open at all, or whether it closes for all but the handful of names that survived 2025 with their valuations intact.
The strategic split: infrastructure versus science
Circle’s outperformance relative to the rest of the cohort is no coincidence of timing.
The company generates income from USDC reserves and essentially arbitrages the spread between government bond yields and the zero interest rate it pays to stablecoin holders.
That model works regardless of whether Bitcoin trades at $100,000 or $50,000, which isolates Circle from the pure directional bet that defines exchanges like Gemini or trading platforms like eToro.
When crypto spot volumes collapse, those companies immediately lose costs. Circle continues to earn.
Figment’s modest 11% gain reflects similar logic. The staking infrastructure relies on the adoption of proof-of-stake networks, and not on speculative trading activities. As long as Ethereum, Solana and other PoS chains continue to validate blocks, Figment will collect its share.
eToro, Bullish and Gemini, on the other hand, are fee machines directly related to retail enthusiasm. When Bitcoin fell 8.5% in 2025 and altcoin volumes followed suit, those platforms saw trading activity disappear.
Investors who bought the IPOs expecting the crypto mania to continue were caught holding leverage. The 50%+ losses don’t reflect broken companies, they reflect the market’s reassessment of what “crypto equity” actually means when the underlying asset wobbles.
Public investors demanded compensation for that volatility, and stock prices adjusted accordingly.
The lesson for 2026 is that crypto stocks will split. On one side are companies with sustainable, countercyclical or quasi-infrastructure business models that can justify premium valuations even if Bitcoin goes sideways.
On the other hand, there are platforms whose revenues are moving with speculative enthusiasm. The former can tap public markets when the IPO window opens. The latter needs Bitcoin at an all-time high for the acceptance math to work.
2025 was a test run, not a victory lap
Circle and Figment have proven that real companies can go public and retain value. Gemini, eToro and Bullish have proven that investors will no longer blindly chase the crypto beta in stock form.
That repricing happened quickly. In late November, Bloomberg Law noted that new U.S. IPOs posted slightly negative returns in the fourth quarter even as the S&P posted gains, with crypto IPOs “among the biggest victims” of the quarter’s decline.
The message was clear: public investors will still buy crypto risk, but only at the right price and with a view to profits. The “blockchain everything” phase ended sometime between Circle’s debut in June and Gemini’s collapse in December.
Consensys joining the queue signals confidence that 2026 will remain viable, but also that the founders know this opportunity won’t last forever. If interest rates rise, if Bitcoin corrects hard, or if capital returns to speculation with native tokens, the equity route will be closed.
The cohort that went public in 2025 will have emerged just in time. Those left behind can wait years for a new opportunity.
What the scorecard indicates for risk appetite for 2026
The underperformance of the 2025 IPO cohort versus Bitcoin suggests that equity investors are treating these companies as leveraged, fee-based proxies in the cycle, rather than as secular growth stories.
That sets the bar for 2026. Companies looking to go public will have to demonstrate cash generation that can survive a flat or down market, not just hockey stick projections that assume continued retail euphoria.
But Circle’s retention of profits indicates sustained demand for regulated crypto infrastructure.
Investors still want exposure to stablecoin rails, tokenization platforms and custodian providers, companies where regulations and revenues are transparent.
That appetite didn’t disappear when Bitcoin fell, it just became more selective.
Nasdaq expects listings to exceed $1 billion in 2026, with US IPO proceeds rising approximately 80% in 2025 versus 2024. Falling rates, high valuations and broad market sentiment support this view.
But the list of winners remains narrow. An analysis of the tech capital markets of the 2025 IPO winners found that AI and crypto names like CoreWeave and Circle dominated, with very few breakouts outside these themes. The risk budget for 2026 is concentrated rather than broad.
Any new crypto listing will have to fit into a clear structural narrative, such as stablecoin infrastructure, tokenized assets, on-chain AI integration or institutional custody, in order to compete for that capital.
A16z’s ‘State of Crypto 2025’ frames the year as one of institutional adoption, with Circle’s IPO marking the moment stablecoin issuers became mainstream financial institutions.
The report notes that exchange-traded products now hold approximately $175 billion in crypto assets, up 169% year-over-year, and that public “digital asset treasury” companies control approximately 4% of the combined Bitcoin and Ethereum supply.
Together, ETPs and treasury plays account for approximately 10% of outstanding BTC and ETH. That’s a deepening pipeline between capital markets and tokens, and the IPO cohort represents another node in that infrastructure.
But institutional participation remains superficial. Reuters reported mid-year that less than 5% of spot Bitcoin ETF assets are held by pensions and endowments, while another 10-15% are held by hedge funds and asset managers.
Most flows still come from retail. As institutions with truly long horizons enter, they are more likely to start with regulated wrappers, ETFs, listed exchanges and stablecoin issuers, rather than direct altcoin bets.
The 2025 IPO Scorecard provides a preview of the kind of risk these institutions will tolerate on their books: stable, cash-generating companies with clear compliance frameworks, and no speculative trading platforms profiting from meme coin volume.
The real question for 2026
The performance of the 2025 cohort does not answer the question of whether cryptocurrency IPOs are a sustainable asset class. It clarifies the conditions under which the public markets will cooperate. Investors will underwrite crypto companies, but they’re done paying growth stock multiples for cyclical fee streams.
Circle’s resilience shows that there is a need for infrastructure projects that generate revenue, regardless of token price euphoria. The 70% collapse of Gemini shows that there is no need for platforms whose revenues disappear once retail loses interest.
That creates a narrow path for 2026. The regulatory environment is clearer and more stable, stablecoins are mainstream and the general IPO window is open.
But crypto risk is increasingly manifesting itself in public market structures, such as ETFs, corporate government bonds, and now in a closely scrutinized IPO cohort, rather than through token speculation.
The companies that will make the difference next year will be those that convince investors that they are building financial plumbing and not riding a wave. Those who cannot will wait for the next cycle, whenever it comes.