Crypto Stocks Gain 23% While Tokens Drop 36% in H1 2026

Bitwise reported that publicly traded crypto equities rose 23% in the first half of 2026 while a large-cap crypto index fell 36%, creating a 59-percentage-point gap between company stocks and tokens.

Bitwise identified its crypto-equity theme (BITQ) as including companies such as Coinbase, BitMine, Marathon Digital, Galaxy, Figure, Cipher, Hut 8 and Riot. The basket covers fee-based platforms, miners with Bitcoin exposure and firms that sell services and hosting unrelated to token price swings.

Stablecoins represented a clear revenue source during the period. The stablecoin market sat near $310 billion. Bitwise cited trailing-30-day revenue estimates of about $482 million for Tether and $193 million for Circle. Circle reported $653 million in reserve income for the most recent quarter, a 17% year-over-year increase, and received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to operate a national trust bank.

Exchanges and trading platforms showed separate revenue streams. Coinbase’s retail derivatives revenue exceeded $200 million annualized in the first quarter, and its prediction-market business passed $100 million annualized shortly after a U.S. launch. Robinhood reported total net revenue of $1.07 billion in the first quarter, up 15% year over year, while its crypto transaction revenue fell 47% to $134 million. Customers traded a record 8.8 billion event contracts in the quarter, and other product lines helped offset the decline in crypto trading revenue.

Miners and data-center operators secured long-term contracts. TeraWulf signed a 20-year data-center lease with Anthropic estimated at about $19 billion in contracted revenue, a deal tied to hosting and compute rather than to Bitcoin price movements.

Usage and activity metrics moved differently from token prices. Bitwise’s Crypto Innovators 30 Index rose 30.6% in the second quarter while a large-cap crypto index fell 15.4% over the same period. Prediction market volume reached $43.2 billion and tokenized real-world assets approached $33 billion during the first half of the year.

Protocol mechanics vary in how network activity affects token economics. Ethereum burns a portion of transaction fees, reducing token supply tied to usage, and some protocols route fees into funds that buy back tokens. Stablecoin reserve income generally accrues to issuers and reserve managers rather than to token holders.

In June, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said “stablecoins, tokenization, and new payment systems will shape the future of money.” Research cited by the European Central Bank estimated that a $3.5 billion inflow into dollar-backed stablecoins can lower three-month Treasury bill yields by roughly 2.5 to 3.5 basis points.

The first-half figures show publicly traded crypto firms reported growing revenue from stablecoins, exchanges, tokenization, prediction markets and hosting agreements while major tokens declined in market value.