I'll gather from primary sources before writing a word.Primary sources confirmed. Key discrepancy to note: the brief says "$4.25B" but both the Jefferies article and the Bullish/Equiniti primary source say "$4.2 billion." I'll use the verified figure.

Now writing the piece.

Jefferies Projects $1 Trillion Crypto IPO Market as Wall Street Moves Past Bitcoin Speculation

Jefferies published a report on May 27, 2026, following its inaugural Digital Assets Investor Conference in New York, projecting that the crypto and blockchain sector could become a $1 trillion public market within five years and forecasting a surge in digital asset listings over the next two years.

The conference gathered executives from 35 digital asset companies alongside roughly 150 institutional investors. Rather than centering on bitcoin price, the event focused on how blockchain systems are being wired into the core of traditional finance. "Client engagement continues to grow as focus shifts to emerging beneficiaries as banks, exchanges, asset managers, fintechs and payments companies integrate blockchain infrastructure," the report said.

Tokenization drove most of the substantive discussion. Executives said tokenized money market funds, private credit products, and blockchain-based settlement systems are already in production following recent regulatory guidance. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were cited in the broader context of financial institutions building on blockchain rails regardless of spot prices.

Several IPO candidates are actively preparing. Securitize and Payward — the parent company of Kraken — are finalizing public listing plans. The conference also featured executives from Ripple, Galaxy (GLXY), Bullish (BLSH), and Consensys. Joseph Lubin of Consensys framed the direction at Consensus Miami earlier this month: "We're moving into a world where essentially the entire economy is going to be tokenized."

Two infrastructure deals illustrate what that shift looks like in practice. Bullish agreed to acquire transfer agent Equiniti for $4.2 billion in a transaction that combines a regulated shareholder registry with blockchain settlement rails — one of the largest crypto-linked M&A deals on record, surpassing Coinbase's $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit. Separately, Securitize partnered with Computershare to enable public companies to issue tokenized shares through existing shareholder record systems, targeting the $70 trillion U.S. equity market.

Jefferies pointed to the proposed CLARITY Act as potentially "the missing piece" for deeper institutional adoption, arguing that a comprehensive market structure framework would unlock further participation from heavily regulated financial institutions.

The bank's framing is explicit: investor attention has moved away from meme coins and speculative trading and toward blockchain systems generating revenue from trading, payments, lending, and tokenized products. "Investors frequently overestimate the magnitude of tech disruption in the near term and underestimate it over the longer term," the report said.

Sources

Note on one figure: The task brief cited the Equiniti deal at $4.25B. Both the Jefferies-focused article and the primary Bullish deal coverage state $4.2 billion. The piece uses the verified figure.