On January 22, 2026, BitGo (BTGO) officially completed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, issuing 11.8 million shares at $18 per share, raising approximately $213 million based on a single source calculation. On the first day, the stock price surged by as much as 36%, corresponding to a peak market capitalization of about $2.6 billion, before retreating, casting a shadow of emotion and speculation over its debut. From a fundamental perspective, this infrastructure provider, which manages $104 billion in custodial assets and serves over 5,100 institutional clients, achieved a full-year profit of $156 million in 2024 and recorded a profit of $35 million in the first three quarters of 2025, crossing the profitability inflection point. The trajectory of the stock price, which opened high and then fell, sharply contrasts with the gradually forming profit model, also marking the beginning of market divergence regarding whether "BitGo is worth $2.6 billion."

Valuation Tug-of-War on the First Day

● Cautious interpretation of issuance parameters: BitGo's IPO, with an $18 issuance price and 11.8 million shares, raised approximately $213 million based on a single source calculation. Currently, details regarding the number of shares issued and the amount raised mainly come from the same data channel, lacking further cross-verification. This means that investors need to be cautious with the relevant numbers when conducting valuation projections and fundraising efficiency analyses, avoiding the construction of overly detailed models based on a single data source.

● The moment of "2.6 billion" after a high opening: On the first day of trading, BTGO's stock price rose by about 36%, pushing the company's market capitalization to approximately $2.6 billion at one point, clearly driven by emotional "pricing euphoria." However, this high level did not last long, as the stock price subsequently fell, reflecting that liquidity and emotional capital initially dominated the pricing power in the first day's trading, while long-term capital's acceptance of this valuation level remained in a testing and speculative phase.

● Tension between emotional pricing and fundamental anchoring: The rhythm of rising and then falling on the first day exposed the tug-of-war between "story premium" and "profit reality." On one hand, the market is willing to pay a premium for the narrative of being the "first compliant custodian + crypto infrastructure stock"; on the other hand, the scale of profits, growth slope, and regulatory uncertainties are suppressing the imagination for valuation. Such first-day performance often indicates that subsequent stock price fluctuations will rely more on incremental information—whether it be performance realization, regulatory trends, or overall sector sentiment—rather than a single day's emotional outburst.

The Business Inflection Point from Loss to Profit

● Symbolic significance of the profitability inflection point: According to single-source data, BitGo achieved its first full-year profit of $156 million in 2024, marking a key watershed in the company's development path—from the "growth-first" phase of infrastructure construction to the "profit and scale balanced" phase of mature operations. This inflection point is not just a line item on the profit and loss statement; it is a source of confidence in telling the story of a "sustainable business model" and is one of the core fundamental supports in the IPO narrative.

● The issue of profitability sustainability and scale matching: Entering the first three quarters of 2025, BitGo recorded a profit of approximately $35 million (also from a single source), maintaining positive profitability against a backdrop of macroeconomic instability and an uncertain crypto cycle, demonstrating a certain degree of counter-cyclical capability. However, compared to the $156 million full-year profit in 2024, the market will question: Is the profit a concentrated release in a specific phase, or is it a sustainable cash flow capability? Whether the current profit scale matches its custodial volume and business expansion pace will directly affect investors' tolerance for valuation multiples in the coming years.

● Conversion efficiency behind AUC and institutional clients: BitGo currently manages approximately $104 billion in custodial assets and serves over 5,100 institutional clients, making it a leading player in the crypto custody space in terms of scale. However, the large scale of assets under custody and the number of institutions does not automatically translate into proportional revenue and profit; custodial fee rates, penetration of value-added services, staking, and issuance contributions are key to determining "the value of each dollar of AUC." The currently disclosed data is insufficient to accurately break down its revenue structure, reminding investors to be cautious of overestimating conversion efficiency when using AUC for simple valuation comparisons.

● Boundaries of using single-source data: Whether it is the $156 million annual profit, $35 million interim profit, or $104 billion in custodial assets and 5,100+ institutional clients, these figures currently mainly come from a single public channel. In institutional research and individual investment decisions, these data points can serve as qualitative and rough valuation references, but when constructing detailed DCF models or comparing with other listed financial infrastructure companies, they should be viewed as "data points pending further verification," rather than absolute precision valuation foundations.

Integrated Narrative of Custody, Staking, and Issuance

● The rare selling point of integrated services: BitGo is positioned as the first publicly listed company to provide integrated services for custody, staking, and stablecoin issuance, making this combination highly rare in capital market narratives. For Wall Street, this means that through a single stock, it can connect a complete infrastructure loop from asset security custody, yield management to on-chain settlement medium, thus carrying more imagination about "crypto financialization" on a single entity.

● The "infrastructure entry point" for institutional entry: In practical business scenarios, large institutions entering the crypto asset space often need to solve three problems first: asset security, compliant custody, and compliant yield management. BitGo's custody service provides a secure and compliant vault for "on-chain" assets, while its staking service creates additional yield for institutions without changing their holding structure, and its stablecoin issuance capability provides a bridge for fund circulation on and off-chain. For many institutions, it is more efficient to complete the entire process on a compliant integrated platform rather than connecting with multiple service providers separately, which is also the core selling point BitGo hopes to amplify through its IPO.

● Narrative premium and the market's reserved attitude: The bundling of multiple business lines has brought BitGo a significant narrative premium during the IPO phase—the market can define it as "the custody and yield infrastructure platform for crypto assets," rather than just a single custody company. However, how high this narrative can translate into valuation multiples in the secondary market still depends on several practical issues: What is the actual revenue share of staking and issuance businesses? Does the regulatory environment allow for the continued expansion of these businesses? If future regulations tighten or the cycle weakens, will the market view the current premium as a "narrative bubble"? From the first day's surge and subsequent retreat, investors clearly recognize the direction of this "integrated story," but remain cautious about its realization path.

Wall Street Language of Multi-Jurisdictional Compliance Trust

● Deconstructing the "strategic pillar" theory: YZi Labs described BitGo's multi-jurisdictional compliance trust structure as a "strategic pillar for the integration of capital markets and digital assets." The logic behind this is that by holding compliant licenses and trust structures in multiple key jurisdictions, BitGo can provide custody services to global institutions under different regulatory environments, reducing systemic risks from sudden policy changes in a single region. This structure is highly attractive to Wall Street, as it binds "regulatory visibility" with "geographic diversification," aligning with traditional finance's preference for risk dispersion and compliance transparency.

● The symbolic openness of listing on the NYSE: Choosing to list on the NYSE itself is a gesture of "submitting a business card" to traditional capital markets. For the NYSE, accepting a crypto infrastructure company like BitGo means opening a part of the gate to "compliant crypto infrastructure" under strict selection, rather than a blanket release for the entire crypto asset field. BitGo's listing is thus seen as a sample of "selective openness": only companies that pass scrutiny in compliance, structure, and risk control dimensions have the opportunity to enjoy this channel's benefits.

● Defensive value and premium duration of compliance structures: In an environment of repeated fluctuations in the crypto cycle, the multi-jurisdictional compliance trust structure itself constitutes a "defensive asset" characteristic: even with severe price volatility, as long as there is demand for custodial assets and institutions, compliant custody services will continue. The market is therefore willing to grant a certain "compliance premium," viewing it as a buffer against regulatory and market uncertainties. However, how long this premium can be maintained and under what regulatory circumstances it will be repriced remains a market viewpoint pending verification, with different institutions showing significant divergence in their judgments about the sustainability of the "compliance premium."

● Regulatory uncertainty and valuation suspense: A significant backdrop to BitGo's valuation is the high uncertainty regarding future regulatory directions and business boundaries. Some believe that tightening regulations may further elevate the scarcity of compliant infrastructure, thereby strengthening valuations; others worry that tightening regulatory lines will limit the expansion space for high-profit businesses like staking and issuance, compressing the overall profit ceiling. Since these judgments largely stem from analysts' and the market's forward-looking interpretations, lacking a quantifiable policy timeline, they are currently more suitable as background assumptions for valuation discussions rather than definitive parameters to be directly incorporated into models.

YZi Labs' Strategic Placement and the Divide in the Secondary Market

● Why bet on compliant custody rather than a single asset: From the perspective of YZi Labs' strategic placement, its bet is not on the price of a single crypto asset, but on the "compliant custody + infrastructure" track itself. For this type of institution, BitGo represents the underlying "water, electricity, and coal" of institutionalized crypto finance—regardless of how the prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other assets fluctuate, as long as institutions participate, there is a need for secure, compliant custody and related infrastructure services. This is a bet on "structural demand in the industry," distinctly different from the logic of trying to capture price elasticity by betting on a specific token.

● IPO barometer and sector anchoring effect: Various market voices have referred to BitGo's listing as a "barometer for the active period of crypto infrastructure IPOs in 2026," meaning its debut performance will be amplified as a valuation reference for the entire sector. If BitGo can stabilize its profitability and maintain its valuation post-listing, subsequent companies in the same track will find it easier to reference this sample in IPO pricing and investor communications; conversely, if the valuation collapses rapidly, BitGo will also become the starting point for capital to "re-rate" crypto infrastructure assets, reinforcing investors' demands for discounts in this sector.

● Strategic placement and the cyclical misalignment of secondary funds: Strategic placement institutions and public market investors have inherent misalignments in holding cycles, risk preferences, and return expectations. The former tends to measure returns over a multi-year cycle, accepting short-term volatility in exchange for a revaluation after infrastructure matures and institutional adoption increases; while the latter focuses more on stock performance within six months to a year post-listing, with limited tolerance for pullbacks, making it easier to choose to reduce positions when sentiment weakens. This difference in time dimension determines that, facing the same first-day surge and retreat, placement institutions and secondary retail investors see completely different risk-return scenarios.

● Who will underwrite the valuation in an open question: When market sentiment recedes and valuations return from narrative premiums to profitability and cash flow assessments, an unresolved question arises: Will it be the placement funds that truly value long-term structural value, or the more short-term oriented secondary investors that play the role of "last buyer"? If placement institutions choose to increase their holdings or lock in long-term during the valuation downturn, it will provide important signal anchoring for the market; conversely, if even strategic placement funds choose to reduce their positions within a certain range, the current valuation level is more likely to be defined as a "sentiment peak" rather than a "reasonable mean." All of this will gradually become apparent in the upcoming several financial reporting cycles and lock-up windows.

Thoughts on Infrastructure Pricing Between Bubble and Discount

The signal released by BitGo's listing on the New York Stock Exchange is quite clear: crypto infrastructure is gaining a formal seat in mainstream capital markets, but its reasonable valuation range is still in fierce contention. The market capitalization once surged to about $2.6 billion on the first day, reflecting the market's expectations for the "compliant custody + integrated infrastructure" model, while also exposing the gap between emotional pricing and the reality of profitability that has yet to fully align. In the future, as more infrastructure companies queue for IPOs, the valuation anchor for this sector will evolve from a single case to a range, and the discourse and pricing power of key links such as custody, clearing, compliance, and settlement will be redistributed in the next cycle.

For investors, perhaps the more important task is not to judge whether BTGO's current price is a "bubble" or a "discount," but to learn to build their own valuation framework between emotion and fundamentals: on one hand, viewing validated profits and cash flows (such as the $156 million profit in 2024 and $35 million profit in the first three quarters of 2025) as quantifiable pricing anchors; on the other hand, maintaining necessary discounts and skepticism towards optimistic predictions filled with imagination about regulatory dividends, compliance premiums, and the wave of infrastructure IPOs that are yet to be verified. As crypto infrastructure gradually steps into the spotlight, those who can continue to price based on data and logic after the emotional tide recedes will truly hold the initiative to participate continuously in this emerging asset class.

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