Despite these obstacles, López says regulatory clarity is no longer the main obstacle for companies considering going public.
“That’s less relevant than before. Companies went public before there was regulatory clarity,” he said. “For companies like Bullish, Circle or BitGo, it’s more about access to capital than regulation.”
Kraken’s reported plans to go public illustrate how crypto companies are adapting, Lopez says. The exchange has sought to diversify beyond cryptocurrency trading, a strategy it says better positions companies for public markets.
“The right thing to do is to diversify more instead of limiting yourself to a cryptocurrency trading business,” he says.
Institutional adoption
Despite short-term weakness in crypto financing markets, Lopez says blockchain technology continues to gain traction in traditional finance. Major financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley (MS), Nasdaq (NDAQ), and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), are building blockchain-based infrastructure and preparing for tokenized settlement.
The industry is moving towards near-instant settlement, moving from T+1 to T+0, while initiatives like the OpenUSD network are bringing together more than 140 financial institutions and payments companies around stablecoin infrastructure, he says.
Lopez expects the long-term winners to be blockchain infrastructure providers rather than companies built solely around individual cryptocurrencies.
“Many cryptocurrency companies trying to raise capital in the private markets struggle due to their singular focus on one product offering,” he says.
