From February 19 to 20, 2026, the Forbes 2026 Fintech 50 list was announced, featuring five companies deeply rooted in crypto finance—Polymarket, Securitize, Phantom, Ledn, Hyperliquid—which stood out among many banking tech, payment giants, and risk control software. At the time this list was released, Bitcoin had already retraced approximately 23% in the first 50 trading days of 2026, and the unrealized profits of Ethereum whales had reportedly turned negative, reflecting an overall market sentiment leaning towards defense. Yet, amidst such a "winter" in price and sentiment, Forbes still reserved valuable spots for the crypto track, posing a question: which crypto players can still be seen by the mainstream financial world and regarded as candidates for next-generation financial infrastructure amidst the dual pressures of financing contraction and price adjustments?
The Presence of Five Crypto Companies Cracking Forbes’ Field
● In terms of track distribution, the five companies have nearly created a "thumbnail" of crypto finance from underlying infrastructure to end applications: Hyperliquid focuses on derivatives trading and clearing infrastructure, Securitize specializes in on-chain securitization and compliant asset tokenization, Polymarket prices events and information through prediction markets, Phantom provides a wallet entry for multi-chain assets, while Ledn delves into crypto lending and yield products. From a market structure perspective, this is not merely a stack of single hot concepts, but an intricate interlocking of trading, issuance, pricing, custody, and credit mechanisms, showcasing a relatively complete crypto finance linkage.
● From external evaluations, the commonality among these selected companies is not "maximum price elasticity," but rather a higher stickiness to real financial scenarios. Chinese crypto media interpretations generally point out that the crypto companies chosen by Forbes are based more on the coordinates of "financial infrastructure" rather than on the position of "price amplifiers." Golden Finance commented that "the list shows that crypto infrastructure is gaining recognition from traditional finance," reflecting a reordering of the roadmap by mainstream finance: after multiple rounds of bull and bear markets, the focus gradually shifts from short-term price cycles to the foundational capabilities that support the entire ecosystem.
● If we crudely divide the crypto companies of the past decade into "speculative product providers" and "financial service providers," these five clearly lean towards the latter: Polymarket prices probabilities of real-world events, addressing information and risk management needs; Securitize brings traditional securities like equities and bonds onto the chain, directly connecting with compliance frameworks; Phantom addresses the daily entrance issue of multi-chain asset management; Ledn aims to provide sustainable lending and yield tools amidst sharp volatility; Hyperliquid, on the other hand, provides high-efficiency infrastructure for trading and clearing. Their products clearly connect with institutional, regulatory, or real financial needs, rather than merely amplifying speculative leverage, which is fundamentally why they can stand on Forbes' "home field."
Hyperliquid’s Unique Narrative of Zero External Financing
● In this fintech 50 list, Hyperliquid has been confirmed by multiple data sources as one of the two companies that did not engage in external financing (according to Artemis data), which is extremely rare on a traditional financial technology stage where VC pricing and funding round narratives dominate. Compared to other fintech companies that were also listed, Hyperliquid lacks the familiar "valuation—round—institutional endorsement" narrative, yet it still enters the list due to its role in derivatives trading and clearing infrastructure, providing a counterexample to the question of whether capital-driven success is the only path in crypto.
● During bear market cycles, derivatives trading and clearing often become one of the main battlegrounds for market stock gameplays. Some media comments have pointed out that "Hyperliquid's focus on clearing operations allows it to grow even in a bear market," suggesting that when spot trading shrinks and speculative funds recede, those trading infrastructures capable of differentiating in risk management and clearing efficiency may actually have the opportunity to capture higher quality liquidity. Hyperliquid focuses on a single vertical track, continuously optimizing the trading and clearing experience, and expands its business boundaries even during declining markets, demonstrating a resilience that relies on operational and product iteration rather than story premiums.
● From a capital pathway perspective, the advantage of the traditional VC-driven model lies in its ability to quickly amplify brand and market share, but in an environment layered with deleveraging, regulatory pressures, and sharp cyclical fluctuations, high financing and heavy spending may also amplify risks in reverse. Hyperliquid's path of self-funding or zero external financing may not match the short-term expansion speed and "voice" of ventures heavily backed by VCs, but it results in a relatively light balance sheet and decision-making flexibility. For the highly leveraged, high-risk business model of crypto exchanges, this model of "self-financing + operational efficiency" may signal a new paradigm better suited to high-volatility environments: reducing dependency on external capital, focusing resources on matching efficiency, clearing security, and user experience, and using the product itself as a driver for growth instead of narrative.
From Polymarket to Securitize: Crypto Begins Pricing for the Real World
● The existence of prediction markets like Polymarket provides a highly tensile sample for “how price mechanisms serve real-world uncertainties.” It allows users to bet on real events such as elections, macro data releases, and sports events, with market prices naturally converging into a type of “collective probability expectation.” In the traditional financial world, similar functions are usually performed by options, futures, and complex structured products, whereas Polymarket, in a more open and fine-grained form, expresses information, sentiment, and risk through pricing, placing it at the forefront of "how real-world information is priced on-chain," rather than merely re-gaming internal crypto chips.
● Correspondingly, Securitize does not invent a completely new asset, but rather brings traditional securities assets onto the chain within a compliance framework, providing a tokenization channel for equities, bonds, and other regulatory-recognized asset classes. Whether it’s equity incentives, private equity liquidity, or bond settlement and custody, Securitize stands at the intersection of traditional finance and the on-chain world, acting as a "pipeline for compliant assets on-chain." This role is naturally easier to be accepted by mainstream finance, as it does not attempt to bypass regulation but instead embeds technical capabilities within existing regulatory paradigms, lowering costs and increasing efficiency for established systems.
● From Polymarket to Securitize, these two companies jointly point to a shift of crypto from an "internal game" to "external service." The former utilizes market prices to price real-world events and information, while the latter embeds compliant assets from the real world into on-chain infrastructure. They no longer view on-chain as a closed arena, but as a toolbox coupled with real finance and regulatory frameworks. This explains why they can enter Forbes’ vision: when crypto products begin to shoulder the pricing, issuance, and compliance functions of the real world, they transition from marginal innovative laboratories to potential functional components of mainstream financial systems.
Wallets and Lending: Quietly Laying the Foundation in a Bear Market
● In Phantom, we can clearly see the iterative path of the wallet role: initially providing entry only for single public chain assets, gradually upgrading to a unified entrance for multi-chain assets and applications, assuming the function of a "crypto world browser." This evolution is not for the sake of chasing short-term traffic but rather to lay the groundwork for a potential large-scale user migration in the future—when users hold assets across chains and frequently interact with different applications, a wallet layer that is simple, secure, and highly consolidated will become the true "infrastructure." Forbes recognizing Phantom in the list partly acknowledges that the technological and experiential innovations at the entrance layer have become key premises for crypto finance to accommodate the next wave of user growth.
● In contrast to the entrance layer is the stability of the "capital layer." Ledn precisely taps into the sensitive yet rigid demand for crypto lending and yield products. During a period of tightening regulation and price declines testing collateral security boundaries, any gap in risk control and transparency on the lending platform can easily trigger a chain reaction. Based on publicly available information and media reporting, Ledn attempts to construct a more sustainable credit and yield mechanism on high-volatility assets, maintaining user trust through more conservative leverage management and clearer product structures, contrasting sharply with those aggressive models reliant on high yield promises.
● By placing Phantom and Ledn in the same frame, an intriguing commonality is revealed: they both quietly solidify the "civil engineering" of crypto finance during periods of price declines and pessimistic sentiment—while the former optimizes the interaction entrance between users and assets, the latter polishes the risk control framework of credit and yield. In a bull market, such products are often drowned out entirely in the clamor of surging and plummeting prices; whereas in a bear market, those who can continue to invest resources in maintaining foundational tools and stable lending capabilities are more likely to become stabilizers for the entire ecosystem in the next cycle. This also explains why Forbes allocates resources to these "not-so-sexy" infrastructure builders during periods of price softness.
Mainstream Perspective Shift Amidst Price Retracement and Whale Losses
● If we pull back the lens to the macro market sentiment, the "countercurrent" meaning of this list becomes even clearer. According to certain data sources, Bitcoin accumulated a decline of about 23% in the first 50 trading days of 2026, with the unrealized profits of Ethereum whale addresses also detected as turning negative, symbolizing that even long-term holders are pressured into losses by price volatility. In this context, risk assets are generally under pressure, and skepticism surrounding "whether crypto can tell new stories" intensifies once again. It is precisely in this atmosphere resembling a deep winter that Forbes chose to release a "endorsement list" for mid-to-long-term innovation potential, which in itself carries the meaning of being counter to market sentiment.
● In contrast to price pressure, long-term on-chain bets and foundational trust have not come to an abrupt halt. Research briefs note that the ETH staking amount on the Bitmine platform has surpassed 3 million coins, equivalent to about 6.1 billion dollars at that time's price, indicating that despite declining prices and whale losses, a substantial amount of Ethereum is still locked in staking contracts, providing funding support for network security and operation. Regardless of Bitmine's market share in the overall staking market (which could not be confirmed due to a lack of data), this number itself is sufficient to indicate that certain funds are still choosing to express long-term trust through locking and staking rather than completely withdrawing.
● In such a macro sentiment and funding structure, Forbes’ list showcases to some extent the migration of mainstream capital perspectives—from previously chasing token narratives that could amplify price fluctuations in the short term to betting on those with potential to transcend cycles within foundational infrastructure and service providers. All five companies listed stand unambiguously at a key "interface" position: user entrance, asset issuance, event pricing, credit supply, trading clearing. This layout is closer to the traditional financial view of "infrastructure investment": not asking "how many times will the next round rise," but rather "which foundational modules will be repeatedly utilized in the next decade."
The Next Scene of Crypto Finance: From Storytelling to Foundational Competing
Among these five companies, Hyperliquid has almost completed its expansion into trading and clearing infrastructure with “zero external financing,” while Polymarket, Securitize, Phantom, Ledn have, to different extents, continued along the more typical "financing-driven" development path: accelerating team expansion, market promotion, and product rollout through capital. This contrast is not intended to simply judge which is better but suggests a potentially long-coexisting pattern: in the next scene of crypto finance, the heavy capital, strong brand VC model and the light asset, self-sustaining operational model may each grow in different tracks and regulatory environments, continuously reshaping the landscape amid alternating cycles.
Forbes placing these five crypto companies in the cover story of "Fintech 50" signals significance far beyond the simple notion of "another crypto company making the list.” More importantly, it pushes crypto from the “marginal laboratory” position into the candidate pool for "mainstream financial infrastructure alternatives": prediction markets are regarded as tools for pricing information and events, on-chain securitization is seen as a new vehicle for compliant assets, wallets and lending are viewed as the infrastructure for users and funds, while exchanges and clearing systems are seen as the foundational base for high-frequency liquidity. Crypto is no longer merely a parallel universe detached from the system, but is gradually being folded into the next round of discussions for global financial infrastructure iterations.
Looking ahead, the competition among regulators, traditional financial giants, and crypto-native teams surrounding this entire new infrastructure will not cool down; rather, it will unfold into longer-term pulls over compliance boundaries, efficiency pursuits, and control distribution. On one end, regulators hope to maintain financial stability and investor protection, while on the other, institutions seek to seize efficiency dividends with new technologies, with native teams trying to uphold the tension of decentralized spirit and innovative speed in between. Forbes' list is merely a phase marker: it reminds the market that what truly determines the direction of the next scene of crypto finance is no longer the shape of daily candlesticks, but how these foundational modules ultimately navigate the multiple constraints of regulatory permission, capital patience, and technological evolution to complete the transition from "storytelling" to "foundational competing."
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