theCUBE + NYSE Wired: BitGo IPO | Frank Chaparro, GSR

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Frank Chaparro

Head of Content & Special Projects

GSR

play_circle_outline BitGo is a significant player in digital asset custody solutions and infrastructure.

play_circle_outline Exploring the Surge of Public Crypto Offerings: A Shift Towards Transparency and Growth Opportunities on the NYSE

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Frank Chaparro, GSR

Frank Chaparro

Head of Content & Special Projects GSR

In this interview from the NYSE during the BitGo IPO, Frank Chaparro, head of content and special projects at GSR, joins theCUBE’s John Furrier to discuss the resurgence of the crypto industry and the significance of BitGo’s public debut as a bellwether for the 2026 market. Chaparro provides an insider’s perspective on the shift from the "dark times" of regulatory uncertainty to a new era where the U.S. is reclaiming market share from offshore giants. He highlights how the thesis of blockchain becoming a core financial fundamental has been proven, evidenced b... Read more

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What are the prospects and implications of the BitGo IPO in the context of digital assets and custody solutions? add

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Frank Chaparro, GSR

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John Furrier

>> Hello, I am John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We are here at the NYSE for the BitGo IPO. And earlier this morning on the show floor, we were streaming live. I had a chance to sit down with Frank Chaparro, head of content and special projects at GSR. Here's the interview. A lot of crypto deals in this industry. So I'd love to get your perspective because we've lived in the dark times.

Frank Chaparro

>> Yeah.

John Furrier

>> Okay. So this is now sunny skies, although cold in New York today. If BitGo had gone public two months ago if they got the SE through the SEC without the break, it'd be warmer. But this is a seminal moment again, 2026, first IPO of the year. We've seen other crypto IPOs. The mainstreaming is happening. What's your view on this? Because you've been calling balls and strikes, you're in the industry. Now it's good. Is it straight ahead? All speed ahead, damn the torpedoes. What's your view on all this?

Frank Chaparro

>> Listen, I think a lot of these crypto guys, guys specifically are going to have to get more ties because we're going to have more IPOs at the New York Stock Exchange and it's a different environment. It was very active for us. Obviously Q4 was tough because of the sideways move in tokens, in public tokens. But from a deal perspective, it was off the chart. Whether it was DATs, early stage venture. We did over 23 venture deals in 2025. Over 10 DAT deals in 2025. And so the thesis that blockchain and crypto is going to be a core fundamental part of our financial markets has been proven, has been proven true.

John Furrier

>> Yeah.

Frank Chaparro

>> But on the flip side of that, there's still a big open question at the extent to which the value will either accrue to equity or to tokens. And so you're in this weird in-between stage where for token projects specifically, the future doesn't look as bright. But for companies like BitGo building in this space, it looks really robust.

John Furrier

>> It's interesting. I mean I totally think you're on point there, but I want to just double-click on that. In the dark times, everyone kind of went and hibernated. Certainly in the US they're, "I'm not working on crypto." Of course they were. They worked under the covers. But outside the United States, these were businesses that were being built. Now that the US has a regime in the regulatory side that's opening up, you start to see people come out of the woodwork that actually have businesses and you're starting to see them go public. And now you've got BitGo and these platforms coming online. It's not just crypto trading stuff, it's actually platforms. Reminds me of the tech cloud days where you're starting to see these enabling platforms. And then the apps on top. There's a lot of builders. So the word build has always been like a software developer vibe, but in finance, AI's coming. So you're starting to see the confluence of this builder tsunami.

Frank Chaparro

>> Yeah.

John Furrier

>> Do you agree? What would be your reaction to that? Explain how you see that. Because if this continues, that's massive headroom for BitGo and everybody else.

Frank Chaparro

>> 100%. And you're seeing it in the flows and in the volumes moving to the United States. Bloomberg had an interesting report a few weeks ago about the market share of Binance, which has long been the behemoth in our industry. They're still the largest, but their volumes are declining relative to US trading shops and exchanges. And that just shows that the activity is slowly moving here. And with what's happening down in DC around CLARITY and GENIUS, I think that's going to continue to happen. And basically in this administration, we have a green light and a window to develop and build here for the first time in the history of crypto really. And so that's manifesting not just in the volumes and not just in the ETF flows, but in venture. Venture was down last year, but still billions of dollars flowed into new up serve.

John Furrier

>> So you're saying a lot more venture going into crypto deals significantly on the numbers.

Frank Chaparro

>> Definitely, yeah.

John Furrier

>> One of your side talents besides in your current job is you're good at telling complex stories to people. Crypto is becoming mainstream, so people that are smart that read The New York Times, they have good IQ, may not know the tech. How do you explain the crypto movement right now? Because smart people are really scratching their heads. What's stable coins? What's USD one versus USDG versus you? All this, there's a lot of jargon. What does it mean to the common person who's just trying to figure it out?

Frank Chaparro

>> And it's never clean. And the one thing I think we saw in 2025 was people understand that crypto isn't a monolith, right? Not every token does the same thing as a Bitcoin or as an Ethereum and then the long tail of assets in this space. Certain projects obviously are benefiting from the tailwind of stable points. That story makes sense, right? Simple, better, faster payments. And for people within financial services, they can get them. For something like Bitcoin, which is having a bit of an identity crisis right now, given everything that's happening in macro, that story's a little bit different, right? A safe reserve for your, to hedge against inflation, so to speak. Now, obviously we've seen precious metals run and Bitcoin not enjoy that same run up, but that's a different story. And so part of what is important for the street is to understand those different sort of buckets or categories that these assets fall under. And some are just effectively a network. A token can power a network. And that's a different category. And I think the street's understanding that. Tom Lee's done a great job telling Ethereum's story, for instance. This is kind of like the gas or the oil that sort of powers the stable coin movement. That's one great example.

John Furrier

>> What's your take on the BitGo IPO? Obviously big fan fair here. It's carnival environment, activations, but it is an infrastructure company and digital asset. They nailed custody. One of the hardest things. We all have our iPhones or mobile phones. We all have either Apple Pay or some sort of payment device. We Venmo people. I don't carry much paper cash. We're digital today. I mean, we're one domino from falling for full wallet integration and institutional pickup, just if these things are clicking.

Frank Chaparro

>> We're 45 minutes, I think away from the first trade. And it's indicating that we'll open at, I guess, look, it says 21, 21, $22. So that's up from the 18 price that they were targeting. That's a great sign for the first crypto IPO of the year. If we open in the green, that's a strong indication that crypto equity businesses are a favorite. And they have been for the whole year. That was the story of 2025, right? And a lot of them opened, came to market, tapped the public markets via New York Stock Exchange. Circle, kind of was the first one that kicked things off. They were up 6X from their target price and we saw a number of falling. Polish are another great example. 2X .

John Furrier

>> NYSE attracts a lot of cryptos. I mean, my thesis on that was telling Bryan Baum and some of the folks at ICE and NYSE is that it represents a global institutions, not just the exchange. Crypto companies are global. I mean, this is not just a US thing. Talk about this IPO wave and companies that are looking to go public.

Frank Chaparro

>> We're going to see more.

John Furrier

>> Your advice, your observation, is it all steam ahead? What's the forecast in your mind?

Frank Chaparro

>> I mean, it opens up a new lever for these companies, right? To not only unlock a new client profile that wants to work with a company that's public, that is transparent. I mean, going back to the ethos of crypto is transparency. Everything's on a chain for you to see. That's a whole new category of client for BitGo. It's also an acquisition or a currency for acquisition, right? So you can imagine the more crypto public companies we have out there, the more potentiality we have for inorganic growth, acquisitions, and a whole lot of capital markets activity.

John Furrier

>> Love this IPO, love the IPO window that's open. Frank, great to have you on. What are you working on now? I'm just curious. Take a minute to put a plug in for yourself. What are some of the projects you're doing? What's on your plate?

Frank Chaparro

>> Building out, the podcast over at GSR, we're going to have the NYSE guys on next week, I'm pretty sure to talk about the tokenization of equities, which I think is going to be the big story to watch in 2026.

John Furrier

>> All right. How do we find the pod?

Frank Chaparro

>> Just The Crypto Tape. Just put that into Google, it should be the first search result.

John Furrier

>> Crypto Tape. Baby, check out that podcast. All the action from inside the ropes. Frank's here on theCUBE. We're live-streaming from the show floor of the NYSE. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We'll see you shortly.

Frank Chaparro

>> Thanks, John.