Bitcoin is rebounding, but the companies built on crypto are getting crushed, and the gap between the two is the real story. As BTC climbs back above $60,000 on ETF inflows and dovish Fed signals, the shares of crypto firms that went public in the 2025 listing wave have collapsed: the Gemini exchange is down roughly 89% from its debut trade, BitGo sits about 77% below its January listing, and Bullish has fallen around 71%. Public markets are pricing the coins and the crypto businesses very differently, and it is a warning worth reading.

  • The divergence. Bitcoin is recovering while crypto equities crater, a sharp split between the asset and the companies around it.
  • The damage. Gemini down ~89% from its ~$37 open to ~$4.19, BitGo ~77% below its January debut, Bullish ~71% off its open.
  • The cause. These are businesses with real costs and thin margins, valued on fundamentals, not on token-price momentum.
  • The signal. Buying "crypto exposure" through a crypto company's stock is a very different bet than buying the coin.
Crypto equities drawdown from debut Bar chart showing Gemini down about 89 percent, BitGo about 77 percent, and Bullish about 71 percent from their listings, while Bitcoin has rebounded. Drawdown from IPO/debut (approx) Gemini-89% BitGo-77% Bullish-71% Bitcoinrebounding The coin is recovering. The companies built on it are not. genztech.blog
Fig 1 · drawdown The 2025 crypto-IPO class has been repriced brutally, even as Bitcoin recovers. Owning the company is not the same as owning the coin.

What is actually happening?

A wave of crypto companies went public in 2025 at rich valuations, riding the last bull cycle. Since then the businesses have been repriced hard. The Gemini exchange has fallen from a roughly $37 opening trade to around $4.19, an 89% collapse. BitGo, the custody firm, trades about 77% below its January 2026 debut. Bullish, another exchange operator, is down roughly 71% from its August 2025 open. This is happening even as Bitcoin itself rebounds above $60,000 on five straight days of ETF inflows and softer Fed rhetoric from Chair Kevin Warsh. The coin and the equities have decoupled, and the equities are losing badly.

RelatedBitcoin reclaims $64K as ETF inflows and Fed ease fear

Why are the stocks falling while Bitcoin rises?

Because they are fundamentally different assets. Bitcoin is a scarce token whose price is driven by supply, demand, flows, and macro sentiment. A crypto company is a business with employees, compliance costs, competition, and margins, and public-market investors value it on revenue, profitability, and growth, not on how the coin is doing this week. When these firms listed, they were priced for a permanent bull market: heavy trading volumes, rising fees, endless retail enthusiasm. The 2026 reality has been thinner volumes, brutal competition, and a market that spent much of the year down roughly 50% from its 2025 highs. Strip away the momentum and you are left with modest businesses that were valued like hyper-growth ones, and the correction has been savage.

What does it mean for the market?

The signal for investors is that "crypto exposure" is not one trade, it is at least two, and they can move in opposite directions. If you want exposure to the price of Bitcoin, a spot ETF or the coin tracks it directly. If you buy a crypto company's stock, you are buying an operating business whose fortunes depend on fee revenue, regulation, and competition, and which can crater even in a coin rally. The 2025 IPO class is a live case study in that distinction: the coins recovered, the equities did not. It also raises the bar for the next crypto listing, because underwriters and investors now have fresh, painful comparables. Watch whether trading volumes and fee revenue recover enough to justify any rebound in these names, and whether the July 17 CLARITY Act hearing brings the regulatory clarity that might re-rate the sector.

Is this a crypto problem or an IPO problem?

Mostly the latter, sharpened by the former. Plenty of 2025-vintage IPOs across sectors have struggled as the market repriced growth. But crypto listings were especially exposed because they came public at peak sentiment, tied to an asset class that then fell hard, and in a business where revenue is highly cyclical with trading activity. So it is an IPO-timing story and a crypto-cyclicality story at once. The lesson is not that crypto is doomed, it is recovering, but that the businesses layered on top of it carry their own distinct, and in this cohort's case punishing, risk profile that a coin rally does not automatically rescue.

RelatedThe CLARITY Act Could Finally Split Crypto's Regulators

What to watch · 2026
  • Volume recovery. Whether trading and fee revenue rebound enough to stabilize these stocks.
  • CLARITY Act. If the July 17 hearing brings regulatory clarity that re-rates crypto equities.
  • The next listing. How the 2025 class's collapse chills or reprices future crypto IPOs.
  • ETF vs equity flows. Whether investors keep favoring spot ETFs over operating-company stocks.

Our take

This divergence is the most useful investing lesson crypto has offered all year. In a bull market, everything with the word "crypto" attached moves together, and it is easy to forget that a coin and a company are completely different instruments. 2026 has drawn that line in blood: Bitcoin is up off its lows while the exchanges and custodians that IPO'd on the last cycle's optimism have lost most of their value. None of that means the businesses are worthless or that crypto is finished. It means public markets are doing their job, valuing operating companies on fundamentals rather than vibes. If you are allocating, be precise about which bet you are actually making. The coin and the company are not the same trade, and this year proved it.

Primary sources

Original analysis by GenZTech. Reporting via The Motley Fool.