Jefferies said it expects a new wave of crypto- and blockchain-related public listings as institutional adoption of digital asset infrastructure accelerates across Wall Street and the payments industry.
In a report published after its first Digital Assets Investor Conference in New York, Jefferies said it expects an increase in crypto-related public listings over the next two years and believes the sector could grow to a $1 trillion public market within five years.
The conference, which brought together executives from 35 digital asset companies along with about 150 institutional investors, focused less on bitcoin price speculation and more on how blockchain systems are increasingly integrated into traditional finance.
Jefferies said that conversations with clients showed that investors are becoming more convinced that blockchain technology is moving beyond experiments and into the core financial infrastructure.
“Customer engagement continues to grow as the focus shifts to new beneficiaries as banks, exchanges, asset managers, fintechs and payments companies integrate blockchain infrastructure,” the report said.
The crypto IPO market has slowed this year after a booming 2025 that saw several digital asset firms successfully go public amid surging bitcoin prices and renewed investor appetite for crypto-related stocks. The recent pullback in IPOs has largely tracked broader market volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty, but another wave of offerings is expected to come later this year with several crypto companies, including Securitize and Payward, Kraken’s parent company, finalizing IPO plans.
Jeffries also pointed to tokenization – the process of representing financial assets on blockchain networks – as one of the biggest drivers behind this shift. Executives at the conference said tokenized money market funds, private credit products and blockchain-based settlement systems are already in production following recent regulatory guidelines that reduced legal uncertainty surrounding digital assets.
The trend of Wall Street using blockchain technology and not focusing on crypto prices has been a recurring theme in recent months. Huge financial institutions, such as JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and other traditional Fintech companies, are going all-in on adopting the technology in their business model, regardless of what the price of bitcoin does.
In fact, tokenization and stablecoins were the main topics at Consensus Miami this year, overshadowing all other crypto-related discussions. “We’re moving into a world where essentially the entire economy will be tokenized,” said Joseph Lubin, CEO and founder of Miami-based Consensys.
Jefferies argued that additional regulatory clarity could accelerate adoption even further, particularly among heavily regulated financial institutions. Pointing to the proposed CLARITY Act, which would establish a broader market structure framework for digital assets in the US, the bank said the legislation could be “the missing piece” that drives more institutional investment and pushes blockchain-based finance further into the mainstream.
‘Technical disruption’
The report also highlighted how traditional financial firms are increasingly partnering with crypto-native infrastructure providers rather than competing directly with them.
Panelists at the conference described a growing ecosystem where banks, trading platforms and payment firms are using blockchain networks to reduce settlement times, improve capital efficiency and launch new financial products.
Earlier this year, tokenization firm Securitize partnered with transfer agent Computershare to help public companies issue tokenized shares directly within existing shareholder registration systems, while crypto platform Bullish (BLSH), the owner of CoinDesk, agreed to acquire transfer agent Equiniti for $4.2 billion to bolster its blockchain-based settlement infrastructure.
Stablecoins and tokenized payments were repeatedly cited as key areas for near-term growth, especially as payment companies look for ways to lower the cost of cross-border transfers and operate around the clock.
The conference featured executives from firms including Ripple, Kraken, Galaxy (GLXY), Bullish (BLSH) and Consensys.
While institutional adoption was the biggest catalyst when BlackRock first started bitcoin exchange-traded funds, what the adoption would look like was among the most talked about topics at the time. Fast forward to today, and it seems that these sophisticated investors see the sector as a disruptive technology that can improve their business model in the long term, rather than short-term speculative trading.
Jefferies said the discussions reflected a broader shift in investor attention away from meme coins and speculative trading activity towards blockchain systems that generate revenue from trading, payments, lending and tokenized financial products.
“Investors often overestimate the magnitude of technology disruption in the short term and underestimate it in the longer term,” the report said.
