The wave of cryptocurrency projects going public in the U.S.: How to reasonably value them to attract Wall Street's attention?

2025-07-11 22:10:42

Collection

Ten years from now, cryptocurrency will no longer be a niche market discussed by tech enthusiasts, but will become a core technology supporting everyday life.

Original Title: Blockchain Going Public: the Convergence of Public Markets and Digital Assets

Original Author: Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital

Original Compilation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Key Points

· Crypto company IPOs release significant value, despite challenges in market pricing.

· The token transparency framework aims to enhance market clarity and attract more institutional funds into the token market.

· Stock tokenization is reshaping financial markets, improving efficiency and expanding global capital access.

Mispriced Crypto IPOs

The performance of Coinbase since its IPO serves as a typical case, revealing the pricing dilemma in public markets for cutting-edge financial infrastructure innovations. We witnessed COIN surge by 52% from its opening price, briefly surpassing a valuation of $100 billion, only to deeply retrace as market sentiment and crypto cycles fluctuated. Each market turn seems to reprice Coinbase with a new valuation framework, leaving long-term value investors and builders confused.

The Circle IPO is another recent case: despite strong market demand for stablecoin exposure, Circle earned $1.7 billion less on its first day of trading, becoming one of the most underpriced IPOs in decades. This is not only a unique case in the crypto industry but also a structural pricing challenge faced by the new generation of financial companies entering public markets.

The crypto industry needs a more adaptive price discovery mechanism, one that bridges the gap between institutional demand and the true value of platforms during market cycle transitions.

New Valuation Framework

The crypto market still lacks a standardized disclosure system akin to S-1 filings. The mispricing of crypto IPOs demonstrates that when underwriters cannot map token economics to a GAAP checklist, they either overestimate due to hype or underestimate out of fear. To fill this gap, Cosmo Jiang from Pantera Capital collaborated with Blockworks to launch the "Token Transparency Report"—which includes 40 indicators that transform protocol opacity into IPO-level clarity. This framework requires founders to:

· Calculate revenue based on actual entities

· Disclose labeled internal wallet ownership

· Submit quarterly token holder reports (covering treasury, cash flow, and KPIs)

· Reveal details of market maker or CEX partnerships, allowing investors to assess liquidity risks before listing

Why Can This System Enhance Valuation?

· Lower Discount Rates: Clear circulation and unlocking data bring market pricing closer to intrinsic value.

· Expand Buyer Base: Institutional investors previously blocked by "black box" protocols can participate in certified projects.

· Regulatory Alignment: The SEC's crypto issuance guidelines released in April 2025 align closely with this framework, allowing projects to complete much of the paperwork upon application submission, speeding up approvals and narrowing the public-private valuation gap.

The latest Ethereum upgrade perfectly illustrates the difference between blockchain and traditional enterprises: each new block destroys a portion of ETH (similar to automatic stock buybacks) while providing stakers with a 3-5% yield (similar to stable dividends). The correct approach is to view "issuance minus destruction" as free cash flow, with the discounted valuation reflecting on-chain ecosystem valuation rather than merely the balance sheet. However, scarcity is just the first step; on-chain activity tells the complete story: real-time data on stablecoin cross-wallet flows, bridging activities, and DeFi collateral movements fundamentally support token prices.

A comprehensive valuation approach should be based on traditional cash flows, with on-chain revenue (staking yield minus transaction fee destruction) as a core verification element. By continuously monitoring staking yields, real-time flow metrics, and scenario analyses, the valuation method can remain up-to-date, attracting traditional capital into the market.

Stock Tokenization Optimizes Trading Experience

Pantera Capital supports the RWA (Real World Assets) tokenization space through its investment in Ondo Finance. Recently, we launched a $250 million fund in collaboration with Ondo to promote RWA development. With Robinhood announcing stock tokenization, this field is maturing rapidly. Last week, Robinhood introduced tokenized stocks on its platform, highlighting the core contradiction of this new financial technology: permissionless finance vs. permissioned finance, and the future role of DeFi.

Permissionless tokenized stocks allow anyone to trade on public chains at any time, opening up the U.S. capital markets to global investors, but they may also become breeding grounds for insider trading and manipulation. In contrast, the KYC-based permissioned model maintains market fairness but limits the core advantage of global access for tokenized stocks.

We believe tokenized stocks will reshape DeFi. The mission of DeFi is to build open, programmable financial primitives, but it has primarily served crypto-native tokens until now. The introduction of tokenized stocks unlocks new use cases. The structure of tokenized stocks will determine the next wave of users and liquidity:

· In the permissioned model, traditional institutions like Robinhood that have user relationships dominate the front end, while DeFi protocols can only compete for liquidity in the back end.

· In the permissionless model, DeFi protocols can simultaneously control users and liquidity, creating a truly open global market.

Hyperliquid's HIP-3 upgrade perfectly exemplifies this vision: by configuring oracles, leverage, and funding parameters through staking protocol tokens, anyone can create perpetual contract markets for tokenized stocks. Robinhood and Coinbase have launched stock perpetual contracts in the EU, but their models remain more closed and less composable than DeFi. If they maintain an open trajectory, DeFi will become the default venue for programmable, borderless financial engineering.

Bitcoin Market Cap Surpasses Google

In 2025, Bitcoin's market cap of $2.128 trillion catapulted it to the fifth-largest asset globally, surpassing Google. Driven by institutional adoption, the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, and clear regulation, Bitcoin broke through $106,000. This milestone event proves that programmable money has found a clear product-market fit.

Looking Ahead

As Dan Morehead stated, cryptocurrency investments offer returns unmatched by traditional markets. This is precisely why traditional public markets and the crypto space are accelerating their financial and structural convergence:

· Digital asset treasuries and crypto IPOs provide public markets with crypto financial exposure.

· Stablecoins and tokenization leverage crypto technology to optimize traditional market structures.

A decade from now, crypto will no longer be a niche market discussed by tech enthusiasts but will become a core technology supporting everyday life.