Revenue, Not Hype, May Drive Crypto's Next Winner Cycle

Blockchain is hosting a growing share of Wall Street’s daily operations, prompting crypto investors to determine which tokens grant them a meaningful stake in that growth.

Securitize brought on-chain trading to 12 US equities, including Apple and Nvidia, on October 8. The products are backed by the actual shares and launch on Solana. 24/7 trading remains a future goal.

JPMorgan disclosed in September that its Kinexys blockchain arm handles roughly $7 billion in transaction volume every day.

Pantera Capital president Scott Lawin sees the industry entering “the somewhat less exciting but more sustainable part of the blockchain story.”

“It may be less exciting because it’s less flashy and, you know, we won’t be talking about everything going to the moon, but we will be talking about real adoption, revenues, and scale”

Revenue, Not Hype, Could Define Crypto’s Next Winners

Lawin expects financial institutions to act as clients for blockchain companies that boost their operational efficiency. A number of those providers could be acquired down the line.

“But institutional adoption is not an overnight thing. It happens over time.”

The slow pace shifts attention to a standard investment query: does the business behind the token generate profit?

Lawin contends that large investors require a method to evaluate the enterprises that underpin tokens. Pantera’s own interest in building such a framework lies in its alliance with S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“And so we believe as we go forward into the future, as more and more institutions start to allocate capital to the space, they need a framework to start to think about tokens and protocols as businesses with real customers, with real volumes, with real revenue.”

The S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index, unveiled in July, applies this concept. To qualify, the blockchain projects associated with tokens need to show positive total revenue for the two most recent completed quarters.

Yet the index’s own methodology draws a vital line. Revenue from a project is treated as evidence of economic activity, not as any indication of investor yield or capital flows.

For holders, that still leaves an open question: what monetary advantage comes with token ownership?

Top-line revenue alone cannot settle a token’s value. The mechanism connecting business income to holders matters just as much.

What It Takes for Crypto to Win Over Wall Street

The legal backdrop for these digital-asset companies is still fluid. On October 5, the CFTC floated federal guidelines for leveraged crypto trading platforms after the Senate stalled on the CLARITY Act. The measure leaves wider market oversight unresolved.

Lawin anticipates regulators will stay active.

“And it would always be great to have it codified into law. But we feel pretty confident that the regulators are going to do the right thing.”

He predicts companies seeking institutional funds will face deeper scrutiny on their performance over the year ahead.

“I think what the next year is going to be about is continuing to prove that this technology is better, faster, and cheaper, that it can actually generate revenue.”