Wall Street’s growing interest in late-stage cryptocurrency firms could disrupt the traditional boom-and-bust cycle of digital assets, according to new research.
Crypto financial services firm Matrixport said Friday that more than $200 billion worth of crypto companies are preparing initial public offerings (IPOs), which may raise between $30 billion and $45 billion in new capital.
Matrixport said investor focus is rotating away from early-stage bets toward scalable, IPO-ready companies positioned for public markets.
Continued selling by Bitcoin (BTC) miners and early adopters has “nearly neutralized ETF and treasury inflows, reducing volatility and dampening Bitcoin’s appeal to risk-seeking investors,” Matrixport said in a Friday X post. “Wall Street, however, has every incentive to extend the bull market, with up to $226 billion in crypto IPOs waiting in the pipeline that could raise $30 – $45 billion in new capital.”
The report comes as multiple high-profile crypto firms are preparing IPO plans, including crypto exchange Kraken, which reportedly recently secured $500 million in funding at a $15 billion valuation, according to unidentified sources cited by Fortune on Sept. 25.
The news came less than a week after crypto custodian BitGo filed to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under a US IPO filed on Sept. 19. The Palo Alto-based company reported about $90.3 billion in assets under custody and a user base of 4,600 entities and 1.1 million users.
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ETFs signal “paper-backed altseason” for select altcoins
Matrixport’s report supports previous insights from industry watchers, who predicted that the 2025 crypto market cycle will not feature an altcoin season akin to previous years, but will only see select altcoins with institutional backing or outstanding exchange-traded fund (ETF) filings outperform the rest of the market.
Still, some analysts argue that onchain dynamics point to the beginnings of an altcoin season.
“While many investors remain myopically focused on Bitcoin, ETH is quietly outperforming in the background” as Bitcoin dominance drops toward “year lows,” according to Nic Puckrin, crypto analyst and co-founder of crypto educational resource The Coin Bureau.
“Historically, these have been the signals of a reversal into altcoins,” though he stressed the trend has been selective so far.
“While this market cycle has been very different from 2021 so far, we are beginning to see signs of altcoin outperformance, albeit very selectively.”
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Other analysts are pointing to the pipeline of ETF filings awaiting approval as the next potential catalyst for the incoming altcoin season.
“Entering paper-backed altseason,” said Ki Young Ju, the founder and CEO of blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, in a Monday X post.
This comes as the crypto industry awaits the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision on outstanding crypto ETF filings related to at least five tokens, which were submitted during October.
Canary Capital’s Litecoin (LTC) ETF’s deadline was set for Oct. 2, but the SEC kept silent on the ETF filing. It is unclear whether the lack of response is due to the ongoing US government shutdown or new generic listing standards, which would render the 19b-4 deadline irrelevant.
Multiple Solana (SOL) ETF filings from Grayscale, VanEck, 21Shares and Bitwise are facing a decision by Oct. 10.
Later in the month, XRP (XRP) ETF filings from Grayscale, WisdomTree, Bitwise and CoinShares are awaiting feedback between Oct. 19 and 24.
Lastly, Grayscale’s Dogecoin (DOGE) ETF and Cardano (ADA) ETF are both expected to receive a final decision before the end of October.
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