Public Market Scrutiny Forces Crypto Firms to Prove Revenue Quality

Crypto companies entering public markets face stricter financial scrutiny, with institutional investors demanding measurable revenue quality, governance standards, and resilience across market cycles — not just user growth or brand recognition.

BeInCrypto spoke with Anton Efimenko, Co-Founder and Lead Expert at 8Blocks; Fernando Lillo Aranda, CMO at Zoomex; and Federico Variola, CEO of Phemex, about how IPOs and listings are reshaping expectations across the crypto industry. Exchanges, stablecoin issuers, miners, custody firms, data companies, and Bitcoin treasury businesses are all now being measured against public-market benchmarks.

**IPO Status Does Not Automatically Benefit Token Holders**

A public listing can expand a crypto company's visibility and make it easier for traditional investors to track its financials — but that does not translate directly into token price gains. Efimenko was explicit on this point.

«An IPO itself doesn't really give anything to the crypto community. Many tokens are not tied to the issuer's business. So even if the company goes public and reports strong annual profit, its token doesn't have to increase in value. The token price won't necessarily follow the stock price,» Efimenko said.

He further noted: «An IPO can bring visibility to the issuer, but it doesn't guarantee profit for token holders.»

Listed shares represent ownership in a company's earnings power. Tokens, by contrast, may reflect access rights, governance participation, network activity, or market sentiment — with links to corporate performance that are often indirect. As more crypto firms move toward public markets, this distinction becomes increasingly material for investors.

**Institutional Access Remains Constrained by Internal Policy**

Public listings can open the door for pension funds, banks, and asset managers that are prohibited from holding tokens directly. However, Efimenko cautioned that access still hinges on ratings and investment mandates.

«Pension funds will be able to buy shares of crypto companies, but only if the rating of those shares matches the fund's investment policy. For such large financial institutions, the asset's rating matters a lot because they can't afford to lose their depositors' money,» he said.

For many large institutions, the risk-adjusted case for crypto-native returns remains difficult to make compared with traditional fixed-income assets. «That's why it's easier for them to invest in US Treasuries at 3% annually than to stake USDT at 5.5%,» Efimenko said.

Tokenized Treasuries may eventually offer a middle path. If government debt is held in tokenized form, institutions could potentially carry it on their balance sheets based on the underlying asset's credit rating, rather than treating it as a crypto-native instrument. «But once Treasuries become tokenized assets, pension funds may be able to hold them on their balance sheets based on the rating of the underlying asset,» Efimenko added.

**Exchanges and Stablecoin Issuers Lead the Public-Market Pack**

All three experts identified exchanges and stablecoin issuers as having the most credible business models for public markets.

Aranda described stablecoin infrastructure as occupying the strongest structural position, citing network effects, float economics, and payments expansion. «This model benefits from network effects, float economics, payments expansion, and increasingly becoming financial rails rather than pure crypto businesses. Revenue can become more recurring and less dependent on trading cycles,» he said.

Stablecoin issuers generate revenue through reserve income and benefit from growing institutional adoption, though they face ongoing scrutiny around reserve transparency, concentration risk, and regulatory compliance.

Exchanges, according to Aranda, retain the strongest cash-generation profile when managed effectively. «Exchanges still monetize attention and liquidity better than most crypto businesses. The best ones evolve beyond trading into custody, cards, lending, staking, payments, launchpads, and brokerage layers. The challenge is cyclicality and fee compression,» he said.

Variola echoed this ranking. «The strongest business models in public markets are, for sure, exchanges and possibly stablecoin issuers. Others will face certain constraints, whether because of their business model or because there is some seasonality in their revenue,» the Phemex CEO said.

Other crypto business verticals — including miners, custody providers, and Bitcoin treasury companies — face greater cyclicality or structural limitations that complicate their positioning for public equity investors. The bar for all of them is now set by the expectations of traditional capital markets, not the dynamics of crypto-native ecosystems.