BitGo reported about $16B of 2025 revenue while trading around a ~$1.5B valuation, and the reported revenue
Key takeaways
- BitGo reported about $16B of 2025 revenue while trading around a ~$1.5B valuation, and the reported revenue figure is largely inflated because GAAP-style reporting books gross transaction volume as revenue.
- Silver became the second most traded market on Hyperliquid over the prior 24 hours, surpassing ETH.
- The recent surge in metals trading activity on HIP-3 may be a spiky, non-recurring event, making extrapolation of recent volumes potentially misleading.
- BitGo reported approximately $84B of assets on platform, down from about $101B in Q3 largely due to market moves.
- After a large run-up, Kinetic was described as no longer an obvious long because it may now be priced as a successful market deployer, has some inorganic volume from an explicit points program, is illiquid, and requires a step-up in revenue to justify price.
Sections
Bitgo Gross Vs Net Revenue Unit Economics And Earnings Quality
The corpus claims BitGo’s headline revenue is dominated by gross reporting of pass-through trading and staking flows, with the economic take being a small spread/commission. It also claims operating profitability has been thin and recently achieved, and that reported profits can be boosted by non-operating asset revaluation gains. The model update is to treat reported revenue and profits as potentially non-comparable to typical net-revenue businesses and to focus on take-rates, contribution by segment, and operating income excluding mark-to-market effects.
- BitGo reported about $16B of 2025 revenue while trading around a ~$1.5B valuation, and the reported revenue figure is largely inflated because GAAP-style reporting books gross transaction volume as revenue.
- For trading, BitGo can record the full notional of a swap as revenue and record user payouts as costs, leaving the spread as the true economic take.
- Staking revenue at BitGo is similarly reported gross (full rewards) with the pass-through to users recorded as cost, leaving only a small net amount for BitGo.
- BitGo’s operating business has relied on trading and staking to subsidize more labor-intensive subscription/service operations that would otherwise run at a loss.
- BitGo’s reported profits have been materially boosted by non-operating gains from revaluing digital assets held on the balance sheet.
- BitGo monetizes through trading (lowest-tier fee around 40 bps per trade) and staking (taking roughly a 10% cut), in addition to subscription and custody services.
Onchain Perps Expanding To Commodities And Attention Rotation
The corpus reports both a sentiment/capital rotation toward metals and concrete Hyperliquid trading outcomes where silver becomes a top-traded market and a large share of HIP-3 volume. The model update is that demand for non-crypto underlyings on crypto venues can be material and can rival core crypto markets in activity, at least episodically.
- Silver became the second most traded market on Hyperliquid over the prior 24 hours, surpassing ETH.
- On Hyperliquid HIP-3 markets, volume reached about $2.2B out of $19B total (above 10% share), with a large portion attributed to XZY and roughly $1.4B tied to silver.
- Felix’s silver market reportedly does not have growth mode fees and still ranked in the top 10 by volume at about $77M on the cited day.
- Crypto-native traders are shifting attention from crypto launches toward commodities like lithium, copper, and silver, partly because recent token launches burned participants while metals have been breaking out after long consolidations.
Incentives Vs Organic Volume And Revenue Capture
The corpus juxtaposes high activity with claims of materially lower revenue under growth-mode fees and the possibility of points-farmed maker volume. It also highlights a counterexample where a silver market without growth-mode fees still shows high volume. The model update is that headline volume can be a poor proxy for monetization and stickiness when incentives are active; segmentation by fee regime is necessary.
- The recent surge in metals trading activity on HIP-3 may be a spiky, non-recurring event, making extrapolation of recent volumes potentially misleading.
- Hyperliquid revenues were described as significantly lower during a "growth mode" period, with an estimate that revenues are about 90% lower despite higher apparent activity.
- Felix’s silver market reportedly does not have growth mode fees and still ranked in the top 10 by volume at about $77M on the cited day.
- A substantial portion of Hyperliquid volume in growth mode may be driven by points farming via bots creating maker volume rather than organic directional trading.
Bitgo Kpi Definition And Institutional Growth Constraints
The corpus reframes several BitGo KPIs: assets on platform are price-sensitive, retail users are cumulative with slowing additions, and 'clients' are threshold-defined, which can inflate counts as prices rise. It also describes competitive barriers in ETF custody and exchange custody insourcing. The model update is that surface-level KPIs can mislead without definitions, and key institutional wedges may be structurally constrained by incumbent share and vertical integration.
- BitGo reported approximately $84B of assets on platform, down from about $101B in Q3 largely due to market moves.
- BitGo reported 1.17M retail wallet users as a cumulative count since around 2013, and new user additions slowed from about 23K in Q3 to about 7K in Q4.
- BitGo’s reported 5,100 "clients" includes any wallet balance over $1M, which may overstate true business relationships as crypto prices rise and users cross the threshold.
- BitGo has struggled to penetrate the ETF custody market because Coinbase reportedly holds about 80% of ETF custody share, and exchanges increasingly build custody in-house rather than outsource.
Kinetic Shift From Lst Fees To Market Deployer And Buyback Policy
The corpus describes Kinetic’s early revenue as tied to conversion/withdrawal churn, then a governance change to operate as a market deployer with an explicit revenue-to-buybacks policy and a period without token unlocks. It also flags concerns about incentive-driven volume, liquidity, and needing revenue step-ups after a run-up. The model update is that token value capture narratives can change sharply with governance-defined revenue routing, but sustainability depends on verifiable post-incentive revenue and execution of buybacks.
- After a large run-up, Kinetic was described as no longer an obvious long because it may now be priced as a successful market deployer, has some inorganic volume from an explicit points program, is illiquid, and requires a step-up in revenue to justify price.
- Kinetic initially monetized mainly via a 10 bps withdrawal/conversion fee (kHYPE back to HYPE), and that revenue peaked during a points-program-driven churn period before declining as LST behavior became stickier.
- Kinetic’s KIP-2 (late December) formalized expansion beyond an LST into a Hyperliquid market-deployer layer and set a policy to use revenues for token buybacks with a 90/10 split (90% to Kinetic, 10% to kHYPE).
- Kinetic’s token supply was described as having no unlocks for about a year.
Watchlist
- The recent surge in metals trading activity on HIP-3 may be a spiky, non-recurring event, making extrapolation of recent volumes potentially misleading.
- BitGo’s post-IPO float was described as small because only ~11.8M shares were tradable at launch while ~103M shares remain locked for 180 days, implying potential future supply overhang.
- After a large run-up, Kinetic was described as no longer an obvious long because it may now be priced as a successful market deployer, has some inorganic volume from an explicit points program, is illiquid, and requires a step-up in revenue to justify price.
Unknowns
- How strong is the attribution linking the identified wallet(s) to the Tornado Cash-linked HYPE seller, and are there additional linked wallets still distributing HYPE?
- Will HIP-3 metals activity (volume and open interest) remain elevated over 30–90 days, or revert to a lower baseline after the recent surge?
- What fraction of Hyperliquid growth-mode volume is incentive-driven (points/bots) versus organic directional trading, and how does this change when incentives change?
- When (and with what fee structure and listing set) will Hyperliquid spot assets launch, and what spot-perp arbitrage/liquidity effects will follow?
- In HIP-3, which competitive lever dominates per asset over time: better liquidity (tight spreads/depth) or front-end distribution/routing control?