Hey RafiOnChain here. And this one connects directly to a story I covered a few weeks ago about Kraken buying Bitnomial for $550 million and building a derivatives empire.
Because the exchange wars I wrote about then just got a new player.
On May 21st 2026 Blockchain.com confidentially filed a draft Form S-1 registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering. No share price determined. No exchange named. No timeline confirmed beyond "targeting a public listing in 2026." But the filing is real and it is significant.
Blockchain.com was founded in 2011. That makes it one of the oldest continuously operating companies in all of crypto. It has survived the Mt. Gox era, the 2018 bear market, the COVID crash, the FTX collapse, and now the Iran war. Fifteen years of building while hundreds of competitors launched and died around it. That longevity is itself a data point worth respecting.
What Blockchain.com Actually Is
Most people know the name but are fuzzy on what the company actually does at this point. Let me give you the full picture.
It started as Blockchain.info, a simple blockchain explorer tool. If you have ever pasted a transaction hash into a website to check whether your Bitcoin transfer confirmed, there is a decent chance you used Blockchain.com's explorer to do it. That was the original product. A tool for reading the chain.
From there it built a non-custodial wallet, meaning the company genuinely cannot access your funds because you hold your private keys. That product became one of the most widely used Bitcoin wallets in the world. As of today the company claims more than 95 million wallets created and 43 million verified users. Over $1.1 trillion in lifetime transaction volume across all products.
Over time it expanded into an exchange for buying and selling crypto, institutional trading and lending products, and a broader suite of financial services for both retail and institutional customers. Dallas-based now, with approximately 500 staff according to Bloomberg.
The most important recent data point about its financial health is this. Bloomberg confirmed Blockchain.com has been profitable on an adjusted basis for three consecutive years. In a crypto industry where profitability is far from guaranteed and where plenty of well-known names have burned through capital without ever achieving it, three years of adjusted profitability is a meaningful signal.
The Valuation Story Is Complicated
Here's where I want to be completely straight with you because the numbers tell a messy story.
At the peak of the 2022 bull market Blockchain.com carried a private valuation of $14 billion. Then FTX collapsed. The market crashed. Institutional confidence in crypto companies generally cratered. In late 2023 Blockchain.com raised a Series E led by Kingsway Capital at a valuation of $7 billion. Half the 2022 peak. That repricing hurt but it was not unique. Almost every crypto company saw its private valuation cut dramatically after November 2022.
By April 2025 the last known private valuation was $6.9 billion, down slightly further. But the secondary market is telling an even more cautious story. Pre-IPO shares of Blockchain.com have been trading on Nasdaq Private Market at $10.40 per share. On Hiive, another secondary platform, the price was $6.89. CryptoBriefing was direct about what that means: the people actually buying and selling pre-IPO shares think the company might be worth considerably less than its last fundraising round implied. Secondary market discounts to the last private round typically signal that sophisticated buyers see risk in the company's ability to justify its valuation publicly.
The eventual IPO price will be one of the most closely watched data points in crypto equity markets this year. The gap between a $6.9 billion private valuation and $10 secondary market pricing is not a small number. The S-1 that eventually becomes public will include revenue figures, user metrics, profitability data and detailed risk factors. That transparency is the real test.
The IPO Class of 2026 and What It Tells You
Here's the broader picture that puts the Blockchain.com filing into context.
BitGo went public on the NYSE in January 2026. First major crypto company to IPO this year. Raised approximately $213 million at a valuation exceeding $2 billion. Priced at $18 per share. Then fell 36% below its IPO price within months. That performance matters because it tells subsequent IPO candidates and their investors that the market for crypto equities is not automatically forgiving. Listing does not equal winning.
Circle advanced its IPO process and is now listed on the NYSE. The stablecoin issuer behind USDC had a more straightforward value proposition to communicate to public market investors. Stable revenue from holding short-term Treasuries against USDC in circulation. That narrative translated reasonably well.
Kraken filed a confidential S-1 in November 2025 targeting an early 2026 listing. Then paused in March 2026 citing difficult market conditions. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi confirmed on April 14th the filing remains active and they are watching for the right window. Kraken's $20 billion equity valuation and $2.2 billion in 2025 revenue gives it a cleaner story to tell. The Bitnomial acquisition and Deutsche Börse's $200 million stake add institutional credibility to the pitch.
Grayscale remains among the firms preparing for possible public listings but has not filed yet.
And now Blockchain.com joins the queue. BeInCrypto described it correctly as a "thinning queue of 2026 debuts." The window for crypto IPOs this year is narrowing. Markets remain choppy. The Iran war has compressed risk appetite. Bitcoin is range-bound below $80,000. Every week that passes without a definitive macro resolution makes the IPO timing calculation harder.
Why This Still Matters
I want to push back on the narrative that the IPO timing being difficult means the story is bad. Because there are structural reasons why Blockchain.com going public matters that exist independently of where crypto prices are in any given week.
Public companies have access to capital markets in ways private companies do not. Stock-based acquisitions. Convertible note issuances. Equity grants for talent retention. The ability to use shares as currency in M&A. Coinbase's IPO in April 2021 gave it the balance sheet and currency to make acquisitions and investments that private Coinbase could never have made. A public Blockchain.com gets the same toolkit.
Public companies also face accountability in ways private companies do not. Quarterly earnings. Public revenue disclosure. Analyst coverage. Institutional ownership that asks hard questions. After FTX and Celsius showed the industry what opacity at scale produces, the push toward public accountability in crypto is arguably healthy for the whole ecosystem regardless of any individual company's outcome.
The competitive landscape is genuinely difficult. Coinbase dominates the US exchange market. Binance commands enormous global volume despite its legal troubles. Kraken is building a regulatory moat through acquisitions. Newer platforms keep emerging with lower fees. Blockchain.com's 95 million wallets and 43 million verified users is a large existing user base but user bases alone do not guarantee exchange market share or revenue.
The wallet product is actually the most interesting long-term asset in my view. Non-custodial wallets with 95 million accounts created is infrastructure-level distribution. If crypto adoption continues toward the one-in-four US adults level we are already seeing and expands globally, the wallet that sits at the front of that experience becomes enormously valuable. Blockchain.com has that distribution. Whether public market investors price it correctly is a different question.
My Honest Read
Blockchain.com filing for an IPO is not the most exciting story in crypto this week. The CLARITY Act passing the Senate 68-31 is more consequential for the industry. Bitmine holding nearly 4% of all ETH is wilder. Bitcoin's range-bound action below $80K is more immediately relevant to your portfolio.
But the exchange wars story I started covering with Kraken just got a new chapter. Blockchain.com is not trying to build a regulatory derivatives empire the way Kraken is. It is trying to take one of the oldest brands in crypto public and prove that longevity and profitability translate into public market value.
The secondary market pricing suggests that will be a hard sell at the last private round valuation. The three years of adjusted profitability suggests it is not impossible. The BitGo post-IPO performance suggests the window is real but unforgiving.
Watch for the public S-1. The revenue numbers will tell the real story. Until then everything else is positioning.
What's your read on the crypto IPO wave? Is this the cycle where crypto companies finally prove they can sustain public market valuations? Drop below. 🚀
