The New Crypto Cycle: Building the Stack That Actually Lasts

Key deals of January 19 - January 23, 2026

NYSE Tokenization: Extending Wall Street’s Hours, Not Replacing It

The NYSE is building a platform for trading and settling tokenized stocks and ETFs 24/7, combining its Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade rails. If approved by regulators, trades would clear almost instantly using stablecoins, support fractional dollar-based orders, and operate across multiple blockchains, while preserving the same legal and economic rights as traditional shares. 

BitGo IPO: Infrastructure Steps Into Public Markets

BitGo, crypto custody firm, priced its U.S. IPO above range, selling 11.8 million shares at $18 and raising $212.8M, for a $2.08B valuation. It’s the first digital asset company to test public markets in 2026, doing so in a far less forgiving environment than last year’s crypto listings. With Goldman Sachs and Citi underwriting and the stock set to trade on the NYSE as BTGO, the debut puts institutional crypto infrastructure directly in front of public-market investors.

Farcaster Reset: Capital Finds Its Limits in On-Chain Social

Merkle Manufactory is unwinding one of crypto’s most ambitious social bets. The company plans to return roughly $180M to venture backers after selling the Farcaster protocol to Neynar, less than two years after raising $150M at a ~$1B valuation led by Paradigm. Farcaster isn’t shutting down, but the reset is telling: decentralized social remains hard to scale, even with strong teams and capital. As consolidation accelerates across crypto, with M&A topping $10B in Q3 2025, this move shows a sober recalibration of where on-chain social fits in the stack, and how much capital it can realistically absorb today.

JPMorgan: Capital Moving Into Crypto Infrastructure

JPMorgan is forecasting another leg up for crypto capital in 2026, after record inflows of nearly $130B in 2025. Last year’s growth was driven largely by retail flows into bitcoin and ether ETFs and buying by digital asset treasury (DAT) companies, which accounted for roughly $68B of total inflows. Institutional participation, by contrast, lagged, with CME futures activity slowing versus 2024. For 2026, JPMorgan expects regulation, particularly additional U.S. frameworks like the Clarity Act, to unlock a more durable wave of institutional inflows across ETFs, custody, payments, infrastructure, M&A, and IPOs. The next phase of crypto growth looks less like balance-sheet speculation and more like capital moving back into market structure.

Crypto is exiting its expansion-by-narrative phase and entering an execution-heavy chapter where custody lists publicly, exchanges modernize settlement, social protocols consolidate, and banks frame inflows around regulation and infrastructure. Capital is concentrating around durability, compliance, and systems that can survive scrutiny. The next cycle doesn’t look louder, but looks more operational. And that may be the clearest sign yet that crypto is maturing into a real financial layer rather than an adjacent one.