BitGo (BTGO) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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DATE

Wednesday, May 13, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Michael A. Belshe
• Chief Financial Officer — Edward Reginelli

TAKEAWAYS

• Total Revenue -- $3.8 billion, up 113% year over year and down 39% sequentially, primarily impacted by reporting mix between spot and derivatives trading.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Loss of $1.7 million compared with a positive $3.9 million a year ago and $12.1 million in the prior quarter, reflecting weak market conditions and approximately $3 million of one-time IPO-related expenses.
• GAAP Net Loss -- $60.7 million, compared to a net loss of $25.7 million in the prior year and $50 million in the prior quarter, driven by negative mark-to-market adjustments on digital assets and elevated IPO-related stock-based compensation expense.
• Assets on Platform -- $63 billion, and Assets Staked -- $11.8 billion, both down in dollar terms due to lower digital asset prices.
• Normalized Asset Growth -- Using current quarter digital asset prices, normalized assets on platform increased 29% year over year and 10% sequentially; normalized staked balances increased 21% year over year and 27% sequentially.
• Trading Volume (Derivatives) -- $3 billion in notional derivatives trading since January launch, causing a shift from spot to derivatives products.
• Digital Asset Sales Revenue -- $3.7 billion, up 128% year over year and down 39% sequentially, with overall margin rising to 32 basis points from 20 basis points a year ago and 24 basis points in the prior quarter, reflecting contributions from derivatives.
• Staking Revenue -- $49.4 million, down 66% year over year and 15% sequentially; staking take rate increased to 16.1%, up from 7.6% in the prior quarter, driven by validator mix and token onboarding.
• Subscriptions and Services Revenue -- $25.6 million, up 11% year over year and down 35% sequentially, with the decline mainly from fewer one-time ecosystem and implementation projects.
• Stablecoin as a Service Revenue -- $38.2 million, up 44% sequentially, with take rate improving to 7.4% from 5.5% in the prior quarter; growth driven by new partnerships and client adoption.
• Interest Income -- $900 thousand, up 259% year over year and 89% sequentially.
• Client Growth -- Number of clients served increased to 5,570, up 42% year over year; users now total 1.2 million.
• Bitcoin and Ethereum Platform Balances -- Increased 131% year over year and 7% sequentially.
• Commercial Partnerships -- Expanded with 21.co in Europe and new agreement with OKX for off-exchange settlement in the U.S.
• Q2 Revenue Outlook -- Digital asset sales and staking revenue expected to remain broadly consistent with Q1, subscriptions and services revenue expected to grow sequentially, and stablecoin as a service revenue anticipated to grow modestly.
• Balance Sheet -- $186.6 million in cash and $167 million in Bitcoin held in treasury as of period end.
• Loan Book -- Outstanding balances at roughly $200 million with excess demand for US dollar borrowing; influx of IPO proceeds has supported lending capacity.
• Regulatory Status -- Operations as an OCC-chartered national bank enable broad product and geographic expansion.

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RISKS

• GAAP net loss increased to $60.7 million, primarily due to negative mark-to-market adjustments on digital assets and high stock-based compensation relating to the IPO.
• Reported assets on platform and staked balances were both down in dollar terms, reflecting lower digital asset prices despite underlying client and asset growth.
• Adjusted EBITDA turned negative, with management attributing the shift to weaker market conditions and one-time IPO-related expenses.

SUMMARY

BitGo Holdings (NYSE:BTGO) reported headline revenue and profitability declines, driven by shifting trading mix and lower digital asset prices, but management emphasized underlying margin expansion, normalized asset growth, and market share gains. The company launched derivatives trading in January with $3 billion in notional activity, enhanced stablecoin infrastructure with new capabilities and partnerships, and continued to diversify the client base, including traditional financial institutions entering digital assets. Management communicated expectations for steady Q2 performance in digital asset sales and staking revenue, sequential growth for subscriptions and services, and further expansion in stablecoin-related revenue lines, while highlighting disciplined ongoing investment in regulatory standing, product, and platform.

• CEO Belshe said, "Our advantage is the combination of regulatory standing security architecture, and the breadth of capabilities we provide within a single integrated platform."
• Management noted that normalized platform and staking asset growth outpaced headline dollar metrics, reflecting "continued underlying momentum across the business despite the broader market volatility."
• Client adoption metrics revealed 42% year-over-year growth in clients served and 131% year-over-year increase in Bitcoin and Ethereum balances on platform, not previously detailed in this section.
• The Q&A confirmed strong institutional uptake across tokenization, stablecoins, and off-exchange settlement, expanding BitGo’s participation across emerging digital asset workflows.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Take Rate: The percentage of transaction value or revenue retained by the platform after subtracting direct transaction costs.
• Staking: The act of delegating digital assets to a blockchain network to support its security or operations in exchange for yield.
• Stablecoin as a Service: BitGo’s business offering enabling clients to issue, manage, and integrate stablecoins using the company’s infrastructure and platform.
• OCC Charter: Authorization from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for BitGo to operate as a national bank, expanding product scope and regulatory reach.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Michael A. Belshe: Thank you, Rachel, and thank you everyone for joining us. Delivered strong underlying business performance in Q1 despite continued softness across the broader digital asset market. While market activity created pressure on our headline financial results, underlying monetization across the businesses remained strong and we continued to gain market share across assets under custody, trading volume and several of our product verticals during the quarter. We also continued to invest across product platform and go to market capabilities, while making meaningful progress across several strategic growth areas that we believe will matter over the long term.

Before I go deeper into the quarter, I want to address an important point regarding the accounting presentation of our results as we expect this will be an area of investor focus. BitGo today operates multiple businesses across trading, staking, stablecoin infrastructure, settlement, and other related services. Under GAAP, different parts of the platform are recognized differently for accounting purposes, with certain activities reflected on a gross basis and others reflected on a net basis. As the business continues to scale and diversify, reported revenue alone does not always capture the underlying economics or monetization profile of the platform. The January, we launched derivatives, within our digital asset sales business.

Adoption has been encouraging, with approximately $3 billion in notional derivatives trading volume in Q1 alone. As a result, a portion of our client activity shifted from spot trading to derivatives products, That mix shift matters when evaluating our reported revenue. Because spot trading activity is reflected on a gross basis the derivatives are reported on a net basis. As a result, the sequential decline in total revenue does not fully reflect the underlying platform economics. And reported revenue comparisons to prior periods are not directly comparable. More broadly, we believe investors should evaluate the business through the underlying margins, take rates, and net economics after direct transaction related costs associated with each of our core revenue streams.

We are building institutional grade digital asset infrastructure, the secure regulated control layer that institutions rely on to build within digital assets. Our clients increasingly want integrated workflows across regulated custody, trading, financing, settlement, stablecoin infrastructure, and related services through a single trusted partner. We continued to strengthen that foundation throughout Q1, and we believe its importance will only increase as the market matures. We view custody as the entry point to the broader Bitcoin platform, and the foundation of our client relationships. Clients establish trust, bring assets onto the platform, and increasingly expand into our other products and services with a single integrated framework.

This land and expand strategy is central to how we deepen client engagement. it is how we increase workflows across the platform and drive long term platform value. Also continue to see growing participation in the space from traditional financial institutions. Including asset managers, issuers, and other large counterparties. In our view, this remains 1 of the most important long term tailwinds for BitGo. These institutions are generally not building infrastructure from scratch. They are looking for trusted partners that can support digital asset adoption in a regulated and scalable way. This is exactly where BitGo is focused and where we believe we are differentiated.

Our advantage is the combination of regulatory standing security architecture, and the breadth of capabilities we provide within a single integrated platform. Operationally, this was reflected in a continued deepening of client engagement across the platform increasing our number of clients served to 5.57 thousand up 42% year-over-year, and users to 1.2 million despite broader market headwinds. Reported assets on platform at the end of Q1 were $63 billion and reported assets staked were $11.8 billion both down from prior periods in dollar terms, primarily as a result of lower digital asset prices during the quarter. Because digital asset prices can materially impact reported asset values, we also evaluate underlying asset growth on a price normalized basis.

We believe this more accurately reflects the fundamental growth of the business client inflows, and BitGo's continued market share gains independent of the market price movement. Using current quarter digital asset prices across all periods, normalized assets on platform actually grew 29% year-over-year and 10% sequentially. Normalized stake balances grew 21% year-over-year and 27% sequentially. Bitcoin and Ethereum balances on the platform grew 131% year-over-year, and 7% sequentially. Taken together, we believe these demonstrate continued underlying momentum across the business despite the broader market volatility. Let's now dive into some key operational and commercial highlights from Q1. A key focus throughout Q1 was continuing to broaden the reach of our institutional platform through expanded commercial relationships and partnerships.

For example, in Q1, we significantly expanded our partnership with 21.co, 1 of the world's largest issuers of cryptocurrency exchange traded products. This highlights the underlying demand for regulated crypto exposure in key markets around the world including throughout Europe, and builds upon Bitcoin's existing markets. Additionally, just a few weeks ago, we announced plans with OKX, a leading crypto exchange, to bring automated off exchange settlement infrastructure to institutional clients trading on OKX in The U.S. This is an example of BitGo helping solve structural challenges in institutional trading, which has historically required institutions to prefund assets on exchanges and take counterparty risk against those exchanges. It addresses the growing demand from institutions to separate custody from trading risk.

We believe this is a major milestone for the industry, clearly establishing BitGo as the leader in institutional settlement. Beyond these announced partnerships, we also deepened relationships across a broader set of institutional clients, exchanges, asset managers and ecosystem partners during the quarter. Including several strategic engagements that have not yet been publicly disclosed. These partnerships are important not simply because of their headline value, but because they reflect the increasingly strategic role BitGo plays within the institutional digital asset workflows. They demonstrate that institutions are choosing BitGo, not only for custody, but as a premier, core infrastructure partner to support broader operational and financial activity. Throughout the quarter, we continued to extend product capabilities into strategic growth areas.

As I touched on earlier, we launched derivatives trading in January to support growing client demand for tools that help manage volatility, hedge exposure, generate yield, and structure risk more efficiently. Adoption in Q1 of launch has been encouraging, and we have already seen meaningful engagement across the platform. Importantly, some existing spot clients are now incorporating derivatives into broader workflows with BitGo, which is exactly the type of cross product adoption we want to drive over time. Stablecoins are another area where we made meaningful progress and where we continue to see significant long term opportunity.

We have said consistently that stablecoin infrastructure can become 1 of the most important growth areas for Bitcoin over time, and this quarter reinforced that view. Stablecoin infrastructure is 1 of the clearest examples of how Bitcoin's platform extends beyond trading into broader financial and payments workflows. During and shortly after quarter end, we launched BitGo Mint, a 1-stop portal where clients can mint, burn, and convert stablecoins from 1 type to another. We also continue to support clients and partners across reserve management, transaction processing, and the broader operational stack around stablecoins. We look at client conversations today, the range of stablecoin use cases is getting broader across payments, treasury management, settlement, tokenized asset infrastructure, and embedded financial applications.

We believe Bitco is well positioned to benefit from these trends, and we are pleased to announce several Stablecoin related commercial partnerships, including with Stable.io, SoFi, and the Better Money Company. On financing and broader institutional workflows, we launched our unified financing platform and further expanded Prime Services' capabilities including additional risk management, structured products, financing, and treasury tools. These investments are strategically important. Each time we add a new capability, that helps clients keep more workflows inside the BitGo ecosystem. We deepen client engagement, increase the overall utility of the platform, and make BitGo more central to how those clients operate.

Geographic expansion has also remained an important priority, This quarter, BitGo was named Issuer and Primary Custodian for FYUSD, US dollar backed stablecoin designed for institutional adoption across Brian markets. In Europe, beyond the 21.co partnership, we added new traders to Bitcoin Prime's liquidity network in April, improving execution for our clients, on a regulated infrastructure. I would like to now provide some context on the financial results before I hand this over to Edward for a more detailed discussion. We were not insulated from the market environment. Softer market conditions reduced activities in parts of the business and the noncash markdown on our digital assets treasury weighed on GAAP earnings.

However, despite this environment, the underlying economics of the business remained resilient relative to broader market conditions. as they were supported by continued market share gains improved monetization across several of our core business lines, and ongoing client engagement across the platform. At the same time, we continue to invest in the strategic areas we believe will drive durable long term growth, such as product, platform, regulatory capability, and go to market execution. Having operated through up and down cycles in our 13-year history, we believe periods like this often create the best opportunities to strengthen the business and deepen our long term competitive position.

Looking ahead, some parts of the business remain sensitive to market activity and token prices, while other parts are benefiting from onboarding, product expansion and continued traction with clients and partners. I will take you through that in more detail, including the financial bridge for the quarter and the key drivers across each business line. Before I hand it over, I want to close with a broader perspective on where we see the industry heading. Institutions continue to move into digital assets. Stablecoins continue to become more relevant to real world payments and financial workflows. Tokenization continues to create new infrastructure needs.

At the same time, regulatory clarity continues to improve across key jurisdictions, including constructive momentum in The United States around market structure and digital asset legislation such as the Clarity Act. We believe greater regulatory clarity is 1 of the key factors that can further accelerate institutional adoption and BitGo's total addressable market over time. Particularly as traditional financial institutions seek clearer regulatory frameworks before committing additional capital and resources into the digital asset market. As the market matures, clients increasingly want trusted, regulated, integrated partners rather than fragmented piecemeal solutions. We believe those structural trends continue to support the long term demand environment for BitGo.

Periods like this often separate businesses that are simply exposed to market activity from businesses that are building durable value. Our role is not to call the market. Our job is to continue strengthening the platform, deepening the client relationships, and positioning the business to emerge stronger as adoption expands. We did that in Q1. Now I will turn it over to Edward.

Edward Reginelli: Thank you, Mike, and thank you everyone for joining us today. Let me start with the consolidated financial view and then walk through each of our major offerings. In Q1, total revenue was $3.8 billion, up 113% year-over-year and down 39% sequentially. The year-over-year increase reflects a larger digital asset sales business and a broader contribution from Stablecoin as a Service, relative to the prior year quarter. The sequential decline was primarily the result of lower digital sales activity and a soft crypto market environment. As Mike noted, the headline percentage change overstates the decline in trading revenue as a portion of spot trading activity has shifted to derivatives, which are reported on a net rather than gross basis.

For that reason, we do not think that analyzing total revenue alone fully captures the underlying economics of the quarter. While total revenue declined 39% sequentially, direct costs also declined at a similar rate. At the same time, margins and take rates improved across digital asset sales, staking, and stablecoin as a service. As a result, the sequential decline in total revenue was more pronounced than the change in the underlying economics of the business. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $1.7 million in the quarter compared with a positive $3.9 million in Q1 of last year and a positive $12.1 million in Q4.

The year over year and sequential change reflected weaker market conditions, lower subscriptions and services revenue and continued investment in the business, It also included approximately $3 million of 1-time legal, professional costs, other 1-time charges associated with the IPO process and other strategic initiatives. GAAP net loss was $60.7 million in the quarter compared with a net loss of $25.7 million in Q1 of last year and a net loss of $50 million in Q4. The primary driver of that result was negative mark to market adjustments on digital assets. As well as elevated IPO related stock based compensation expense. Which we expect to normalize from Q1 26 levels going forward. Let me now move to the offerings.

Starting with digital asset sales. Revenue for digital asset sales was $3.7 billion, up 128% year-over-year and down 39% sequentially. While overall trading activity reflects a weaker market environment the underlying economics of the business improved during the quarter. On a normalized basis, excluding the accounting impact of the derivatives mix shift, our underlying trading economics outperformed the broader market sequentially and significantly outperformed on a year-over-year basis. We believe this reflects continued market share gains in institutional digital asset trading. Overall margin was 32 basis points, compared with 20 basis points a year ago and 24 basis points in Q4. Primarily driven by the contribution from derivatives activity following the launch of the offering on January 1st.

Strategically, we view derivatives as an important extension of Bitco's platform. Clients increasingly want integrated workflows that include risk management, hedging, yield generation, and structured solutions alongside spot execution. Expanding those capabilities strengthens client engagement and increases strategic relevance of our trading platform over time. Turning to staking, revenue was $49.4 million, down 66% year-over-year and 15% sequentially. Primarily reflecting lower token prices. Staking take rates increased 16.1% from 7.6% in Q4 and 12.5% in the prior year quarter. Driven by additional token onboarding and a more favorable validator mix including the contribution of the higher economics of the Canton related activity.

While the current mix may vary over time, the broader take is that we are improving the economic quality of this business line, while continuing to expand token support. Subscriptions and services revenue was $25.6 million, up 11% year-over-year and down 35% sequentially. The sequential decline primarily reflected a lower level of onetime ecosystem and implementation oriented projects Compared with Q4. When activity in this area was elevated. While these projects are not recurring in nature, they remain strategically important because they often support token onboarding, client implementations, and broader downstream revenue opportunities across the platform. As a result, we do not view the sequential revenue decline as representative of the underlying health of the recurring revenue base.

Stablecoin as a service continued to be the bright spot during the quarter. Revenue was $38.2 million, up 44% sequentially. Take rate improved to 7.4% from 5.5% in Q4. Growth was driven by continued client adoption, product enhancements, and new partnerships. View stablecoin infrastructure as a significant long term growth opportunity for BitGo, supported by expanding adoption across payments, settlement, treasury management, and broader financial applications. Finally, interest income was $900 thousand up 259% year-over-year and 89% sequentially. Turning now to expenses. Most important point is that the quarter reflects both temporary and strategic factors. We incurred approximately $3 million of 1-time legal and professional fees related to the IPO process and other strategic initiatives.

Our stock based compensation of $11.2 million was also elevated during the quarter, compared to $800 thousand in 2025. We expect a moderation in share based expense on a go forward basis. During the quarter, we continued to invest in talent, product development, and platform capabilities as part of a deliberate long term strategy. Are managing the business with discipline, but we are not managing the business to maximize 1 quarter of profitability at the expense of our long term growth opportunity. Our balance sheet remains strong, including approximately $186.6 million of cash and $167 million of Bitcoin held in treasury on the balance sheet as of the quarter end.

Combined with our capital light model, this provides the flexibility to invest through the current cycle support client activity across the platform and pursue strategic growth opportunities from a position of strength. I would also like to briefly touch on the higher interest expense in the quarter. This reflects funding used to support customer borrowing and lending activity on the platform. Importantly, this was operational in nature rather than corporate financing and helps enable revenue generating client workflows within the business. Moving now to our outlook for Q2 2020.

Based on quarter to date trends, we are assuming that digital asset market conditions will remain broadly consistent with current levels, building on the stronger performance observed at the end of Q1. Digital asset sales revenue is expected to remain broadly consistent with Q1 with margins anticipated to be comparable, assuming a similar mix of derivatives and spot trading activity. Current trends indicate strong year-over-year growth for the quarter. Staking revenue is expected to remain broadly consistent with Q1, supported by continued growth in staked assets despite ongoing price volatility. in key tokens.

Subscriptions and services revenue is expected to grow sequentially on a reported basis, supported by client growth across custody and wallets, while also benefiting from nonrecurring ecosystem and implementation related work. Stablecoin as a service revenue is expected to grow modestly sequentially supported by ongoing client adoption, and new partnerships. Total expenses for the second quarter, excluding direct costs associated with digital asset sales, staking, and stablecoin as a service are expected to decrease from Q1 levels which were driven by IPO related charges during the quarter and normalization of stock based compensation, the company will continue to invest in long term platform growth and go to market execution.

With that, I will turn it back to the operator to open the call for questions.

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to 1 question and 1 follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press 1 again. Please pick up your handset when asking your question. If you are muted locally, remember to unmute your device. Please stand by now while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of James E. Yarrow with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Analyst (James E. Yarrow): Good afternoon, Mike. I would love to just get a little bit of an update around the stablecoins and service demand from partners and, I guess, how this has evolved as the Clarity Act progresses? And then maybe longer term, how would you expect the act passing to impact the demand?

Michael A. Belshe: Hey. Thanks, James. Appreciate the question. Good to speak to you all. In terms of stablecoins, continues to grow strong. I mean, basically, everybody's out there looking at clarity and genius, which does not allow interest. And so if you have a broad distribution of users at your bank or financial institution, you are faced with a choice. Do you, a, launch your own stablecoin and then be able to participate in the yield, use it with your partner, use it with your business in some way, or do you give that up to somebody else who is going to instead take that? So in general, just strong interest. I know others have cited, you know, lengthy pipeline.

Got a couple of deals we cannot announce yet. but continues to look really positive. Also, we did just extend our USD1 contract so we are happy that partnership has been doing fantastic.

Analyst (James E. Yarrow): Thanks, Mike. that is really helpful. Maybe just as a follow-up, sort of a similar question around tokenization facilitating, you know, tokenization projects and how you see the opportunity set for your business there.

Michael A. Belshe: Look. I think tokenized equities have really exploded in the last 6 months. there is at least 4 kind of different models for how to bring tokenized equities to market. We are proud that we participated well, actually, we are participating with all of them just as know, we are infrastructure. So 1 of the benefits of being infrastructure is that you know, we participate on all of these, and then we work with the clients to kind of force them. I think the market's gonna figure out which of these work best.

So, you know, the first 1 that we are proud of is, you know, we are the sole custodian within the figure market ecosystem. and they started, I think, in February. Obviously, they have got 1 model which uses, you know, provenance and figures ATS. So that is been kicked off On top of that, there is tokenized wrappers, that exists, as a couple of different players pursuing that. You saw DTCC just announcing that they have got a plan to go to market. We will be participating with all these, and we think it opens up our business tremendously you know, kind of towards how we grow in the direction prime brokerage.

So, anyway, we are very excited about this. We are heavily investing in it, and more to come.

Analyst (James E. Yarrow): Very helpful. Thanks, Mike.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Peter Christiansen with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Peter Christiansen: Thank you. I appreciate the question here. Mike, back on the claims as a service, what degree is BitGo involved in the design and construction of the networking, meaning connecting with other partners, which may not be a part of the Bitco client ecosystem, my thinking is there is an opportunity from a lead gen perspective for services with stablecoins as a service emanating from 1 particular client to others. Just wondering if you could provide some color on that. And curious on any learnings here on scaling this business and what it could mean for potentially large l 1 as a service at some point. Thank you.

Michael A. Belshe: Brett. Thanks, Peter. Let's see. On the first point about stablecoins, I am glad you are hitting this it is a little bit of a subtle point, but, you know, 1 of the advantages that Bitco has, you know, with the large client base is that anyone that launches their stablecoin directly with BitGo immediately plugs into an entire network. And if you recall, you know, at the bottom of our stack, we have our self custody wallet platform. that is distributed all over the planet, hundreds of exchanges of broker dealers are using that. As soon as you light up on the BitGo API, you light up on all of those parties.

Additionally, so I think you know, some of the traditional folks that are coming into the space, are a little bit more you want to use Peter Thiel's analogy of 0 to 1, they are really more like the 1 to many and BitGo is kind of like the 0 to 1. I do think it is a different skill set of how do you take a product which currently is not deployed and get the flywheel spinning and grow it. So Bitcoin's got tremendous reach into the DeFi ecosystem, into the crypto ecosystem, Obviously, we have got partners and hedge funds and venture funds and all others.

So when folks use the BitGo platform for stablecoins, we definitely are actively working with helping them. And you have seen historically, there is been a few stablecoins that launched several years ago, and they pretty much stayed kind of at 0 for a long period of time. And that is because of not having necessarily really good go to market plans. So we definitely help our clients with this. We are motivated and interested and incentivized to do so. And I think that is 1 of the advantages of using the Bitcoin stablecoin platform. I am sorry. Yeah. The second part of the question, what did you ask again?

Peter Christiansen: Oh, on the potential of taking learnings and the capabilities that you have as a service to potentially offering L1 as a service at some point?

Michael A. Belshe: Oh, for BitGo? Correct. That topic's come up quite a bit, I think you know, some of the new L1s, particularly around stable coins, are hitting a new need that you know, the kind of the first generation of L1s did not solve. And that is the ability to pay fees in a kind of stablecoin. So both Tempo and ARC as you are probably aware, You know, if you are moving your stable coin, whatever fees you pay to the chain, can pay in the stable coin itself.

Whereas when stablecoins are moving on Ethereum or Solana or whatnot, you always have to in addition to having the stablecoin, you have to have a little bit of the L1's token. So I think these innovations are going to frankly, they are kind of just required. I mean, it is annoying and a nuisance to have to pay kind of a foreign fee in order to move a stable coin. As for Bitcoin's own ambitions, there could be something. We have not announced anything publicly yet. But you know, stay tuned.

Peter Christiansen: Thank you, Mike.

Operator: Next question comes from the line of George Sutton with Craig Hallum. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

George Sutton: Awesome. Thanks. Hey, guys. This is Logan hopping on for George. Mike, I wanted to start with sort of a specific 1 on Canton. Obviously, you were an early supporter there, and you made a few announcements since this year expanding that partnership. Seems like a blockchain that we keep hearing a lot about, and it is kind of getting more business. So I wonder if you could just walk through some of the different ways that you are set to benefit from their growth and just kinda give us a sense for where that relationship could go in the future.

Michael A. Belshe: Sure. Thank you for the question. Let's see. So, Canton, I mean, you know, they have been a big supporter of digital asset. DRW Dan Wilson, for quite some time. We are proud to be the only qualified custodian on the network today. Canton deserves credit for really addressing early some of the institutional complaints that come with building up applications on blockchain, in particular, privacy, in particular, how you receive assets, you know, there is been concern about dust transactions on Bitcoin, Ethereum, etcetera. And they sold these products, and so they have been able to bring in a number of people.

They also are, I think, having kind of a second mover advantage in terms of understanding how to distribute their own token, in a way that is fair and incentivize the network to and grow. Before having it kinda hit the market and liquidate and cause issues. So I think they are well-poised you know, the privacy, they are kind of the only permission privacy chain in town right now. And with the growth they have had, I think they are looking good. In terms of BitGo, 1 of the things that is interesting about BitGo and often difficult to describe is going into depth on a particular coin or an asset.

I mean, we will say that, you know, hey. You know, Bitcoin has wallet support for pick your favorite coin or we have staking support. And it is easy to say we have the wallet. We have the staking But there is also a lot of depth that goes into that. Like, what features do you support on that coin? You know? What how many staking providers are you interoperable with? Like, what flexibility do clients have? And part of how we grow is by making sure that we can meet all of our clients' needs. So 1 example specific to Canton, it is kind of a funny 1, I think, but it is also really important.

Mentioned these dust transactions. So you know, traditional finance is often worried. Well, like, you know, what happens when you are a financial institution, you receive these dust transactions, on this open network, And what if you did not want it? What if it is from, you know, a bad guy? How do you deal with that? Now, My own personal opinion is that in practice, these are not significant issues but these really do trip up regulators, legal teams, you know, extensively. Canton has a feature. Where you can accept, you know, all the deposits and prove them. So BitGo is not just integrated with the chain. We actually implement that feature.

That particular feature then creates the demand for more features. It turns out that it is a little bit annoying to constantly have to approve every transaction that comes in. So then they want white listing and, you know, ability to kind of approve those in batch and things like that. So we build those. I think we are well poised. I think we are happy that we have the large network on Canton. Terms of the-- and we are able to integrate with the Go network and other things on the go forward. That should just continue to expand.

George Sutton: Got it. Helpful color. Second, just a quick 1 for me. I mean, kind of putting the reporting differences aside, are you able to just kinda walk through how the net economics on spot volume compared to derivatives volume compare for you guys? Just wanna get a better understanding as this shifts over time. Kinda what we would expect to see on that net revenue. line.

Michael A. Belshe: I will hand it to Edward in just a second, but some quick color. I think in the crypto markets, you will see the same thing that is happened in other markets. You know? Derivatives tend to be a better way, more economic way to trade in the industry. And so the volumes on the derivative side will continue to grow and eventually far outpace the spot markets. So we already saw in Q1 some conversion from spot market trading over to derivatives trading which was expected. And we hope to continue to grow that. So for just kinda 1 quarter of offering, we think that the results were pretty good, and we think that will continue.

And then, of course, you know, kind of our margin on a derivative product is higher than what you would have in spot markets. So we are happy about that as well. Edward, do you want to add anything?

Edward Reginelli: No, I mean, we were, as I mentioned, very excited to extend some more product within our trading platform. We have really strong client adoption and we are still very still excited about the spot trading business. Year over year, we have seen tremendous growth. We did go down sequentially, and that was really just due to the fact that in Q4, we had exceptional volume from a few key clients. But overall, we are excited about trading and expanding our capabilities and extending product launches there.

George Sutton: Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brett Knoblauch with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brett Knoblauch: Perfect. Thanks, guys. for taking my questions. Maybe just on the segment stuff, the subscription services sequential decline was, a bit more than I was anticipating. And I know you guys called out maybe it was due to lower onboarding, or implementation fees. But could you maybe provide some just color on the underlying strength in that business? I know there is a number of kind of clients continue to increase. How did the subscription services do outside those maybe, you know, 1-time nonrecurring fees?

Michael A. Belshe: Thanks, Brett. Off on the 1-time recurring pieces, if you understand what those are, you know, as we take on new coins and build them, sometimes they have got you know, particular technology components that are extensive, and so we do charge blockchains and others onboarding fees to do that. However, what we really want to make, you know, our impact in the world is with the ongoing recurring revenues that come from real clients. So yes, the onetime components came down. On the subscriptions and services, you know, I think it is been in line with where we would have expected it to be other than that we had less of the 1-time fees.

The other thing I would point out is increasingly we are wanting to move the revenue kind of up the stack, as I have mentioned before, you know, the custody fees and subscription fees by themselves, and that is kind of a cost center to our clients. However, paying fees as our clients are doing work with trading and with staking and with borrowing, etcetera, Those are where they are making money. So it is a much more palatable place for our clients to pay us fees. That does change the mix a little bit, and it is 1 of the challenges in describing the business is that we have multiple products and services.

And I do not have the stat. Maybe Ed has the stat, but, you know, we shared previously you know, about 72, 73% of clients are using 2 or more products. And then over half the clients using 3 or more products. So we think that, really, if we can bring clients in and we lead with you know, custody is the way they come in, and it is usually what we are known for, But they grow into these other products and services, and we think that is the strength.

Edward Reginelli: No, we have seen tremendous growth in number of clients utilizing our custody and wallet products. And that is somewhat of a recurring revenue stream. So that story remains very strong. we did experience a very large volume, but, again, the big story there was in Q4, of ecosystem projects. Excluding that, the business performed very strong. Year on year, first of all, and then also sequentially. So, overall, we are still very optimistic about our customer pipeline and business, that part of our business growing.

Brett Knoblauch: Awesome. And maybe if I could just follow-up on the staking side.

Michael A. Belshe: Yeah. Go ahead, Mike. Yeah. Go ahead.

Brett Knoblauch: Oh, I was going to say if you had another point on that.

Michael A. Belshe: Yeah. Sorry. You know, the 1 of the things I would like to figure out how to do really well with all of you guys is how do we differentiate the BitGo performance from, you know, the market price volatility performance? And, obviously, we do not consider ourselves to be a huge impact on the latter, although, hopefully, we have an impact to some degree. But, really, we do wanna focus on the former. So the normalized numbers that we discussed on the call I think, looked pretty encouraging. As long as we are and it does not really matter where you pin the price to.

You can pin it to the beginning of the period, the end of the period. In all cases, you know, we saw significant growth both on the assets on platform and also on the assets under stake. So the revenue that we will get on, you know, the, just the custody component will be down from the US dollar notional I am sorry. The US dollar pricing. But in terms of the actual assets on platform, we see good growth there. So we are happy about that for the future.

Brett Knoblauch: Helpful. And then just on the staking front, obviously, assets staked declined. that is, you know, general declines in asset prices. But it looked like the take rate there ticked up a good bit if I am just doing beginning of period and the period average. Almost like doubled quarter over quarter. Guess, did you guys take up pricing on the staking side?

Michael A. Belshe: Yeah. We had a couple of different things. We had a change in the mix of some of the partners that we work with, and then also some of the coins are stronger in terms of the rates we get on those. So those have been positive for us And then lastly, as we did note on the call, on a normalized basis, the overall assets under stake did grow. Remember the assets that you stake is basically the non Bitcoin assets, which is like, the 1 set of assets are even more volatile than Bitcoin. So yeah.

Edward Reginelli: And 1 thing I will add to that is the--what was your last thought in my view? I think you covered it, Mike.

Michael A. Belshe: You covered it. Okay. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. I knew what I was going to say. The only thing I would add is in addition to a positive validator mix, as we get to a certain size and volume with certain coins, we are able to push a lot of that staking capability for our own nodes. Where we appreciate a much higher margin. So that is also helping support. The margin growth.

Edward Reginelli: that is a good flag. Thanks, Edward.

Brett Knoblauch: Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it. Brett.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Edward Engel with Compass Point. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Edward Engel: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. A question on the increased stablecoin take rate. Any more color on what is driving that? I know that there is moving pieces between partnership mix and then, I guess, maybe some transaction revenue. I just want to kind of get an idea of if transaction revenues actually start to drive that business rather than just interest income.

Michael A. Belshe: Thanks. Actually, I think it is mostly that kick starting the business. We actually gave some discounts kind of on the early piece when coins are growing, and then now we have kinda graduated beyond that. So the take rate just goes up. As a result of that. that is the main 1. In terms of stablecoin conversions, we do we do a lot of stablecoin conversions. Those are relatively low margin, and those show up more in the trading side rather than under the stablecoin amount.

Edward Engel: numbers. Thanks for that. for that. And then I guess on the OKX integration for off-exchange settlement, I mean, it kind of seems like it is just a matter of time before this structure becomes kind of the standard industry. Just curious, like, how do these integrations, I guess, help the business just economically? Is it more of a way to kind of gain and maintain market share, or are actually able to monetize some of those trading fees?

Michael A. Belshe: Yeah, great question. What part of it is you get the access on platform, and then you have the ability to address those clients in many ways. So we are trying to help make the settlement network just be the strongest largest volume that is out there. And the most important place to be is on the, the large exchanges. So, you know, the big 3 is Binance and OKX and private. So this is this is 1 of the big ones, and we are really excited about the fact that we have it.

And then in terms of how we make money, I think 1 of the 1 of the elements of the crypto industry that has not been fully considered you know, through most of our 10-year history, is how to price risk. So remember, when you are when you are doing trading, there is 3 components of pricing. Number 1 is okay, what is the cost of the underlying asset that you are trading? Number 2 is how much profit do you wanna take? 5 bps, 10 bps, or 100 bps. And then the third 1 is what is your risk?

And because crypto markets are highly volatile, relatively new, require prefunding out of exchanges, The measurement of that risk is super tough. And, of course, the industry has seen big penalties like what happened when FTX had a blowout, you know, back in 2022. So the main thing that our clients get out of you know, having off exchange settlement is reduced risk and the ability to start actually measuring and quantifying the risk so that they can get their prices right. I think, so far, what is been happening is we have really wide margins, on the on the profit side, and then people just say, well, that is big enough.

It will cover some of the risks that I am taking. Now with the ability to trade without having to prefund various venues, you take out that risk, and you can start to quantify it for real. This is gonna bring prices kind of back, and, you know, we see Charles Schwab came in, I think, Where were they gonna be at? 75 basis points on their retail trading? And then Morgan Stanley has now announced that they are gonna do 50 bps on their retail trading. You know, as they bring their rates down, they are going to increasingly have to figure out how they are going to measure and control the risk that they are taking.

And I think they are going to find the BitGo settlement network to be a very satisfying place to be.

Edward Engel: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Dobson with Clear Street. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brian Dobson: Hey. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. So at the top of the call, you spoke a little bit about growing your share of a client's business organically over time. Can you give us a little bit of color on what that looks like and how you are thinking about client acquisition cost?

Michael A. Belshe: Yeah. Look. it is been 1 of-- thank you, Brian. it is been 1 of our key metrics, you know, since our IPO day back in January. But, I mean, before that internally, Look. Overall, the market is simply expanding. And what started out, you know, 10 years ago was primarily Bitcoin and then expanded into a few other assets and then ICOs, and now it is grown into stable coins and DeFi. Know, it is it is about to go into tokenized equities. So the more clients you have on platform, the more it means that your clients are gonna be able to match each other on the settlement network. and whatnot.

So we look for partnerships where we can have a partnership that brings on more clients. The OKX platform, I am sorry. OKX integration is no exception. By doing that deal, we can now work to find clients that we have in common Sometimes we are helping OKX with getting more clients. Sometimes they are helping us with getting more clients. Yeah. Basically, anywhere that we can find a partnership where 1 client begets more clients, we consider that a win.

Brian Dobson: Great. Thanks very much.

Operator: Next question comes from the line of Joe Vafi with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Joseph Vafi: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for the question here. Just maybe we talk about the loan book a little bit, how you are thinking about that strategically, you know, where it may go from here, how it is performing here in this spot volatility market, and then quick follow-up after that.

Michael A. Belshe: Thanks, Joe. Edward, do you wanna answer on where we are at right now?

Edward Reginelli: Sure. I will answer after that. Yes. So the loan book is currently roughly around $200 million outstanding with client facing We believe there is an incredible opportunity ahead of us. We had mentioned, Joe, in the past, but our problem is we have more demand than we have supply of dollars to lend. A lot of the clients are looking for US dollars to borrow. So we try to find unique ways of bringing in additional dollars Obviously, the IPO was very helpful. In bringing in some additional funds to the company to support the program. So we will continue to keep building that program. But, again, the opportunity that we see there is huge.

Michael A. Belshe: And then just-- great. Adding to this part of why I am excited about the tokenized equities is, like, I think there is tremendous demand to borrow against fully collateralized, you know, fully collateralized positions, against all kinds of things. And while there was a healthy market, you know, borrowing against fully collateralized Bitcoin. there is a lot more people that have equities that they would be willing to apply towards this than there are people that are holding just Bitcoin. So we think it is gonna greatly grow the market once we have got tokenized equities on chain.

Joseph Vafi: that is great. I did not actually think about that, Mike, and opening up that margin lending market on tokenized equities. And then Yeah. Just maybe yeah, we maybe kinda talk about a little bit of the mechanics of maybe some of your customers switching some trading volume from spot to derivatives. You know, it feels like if they wanted to do derivative trading volumes, they could perhaps have been doing those away from you, to begin with. So just, you know, wanted to drill down on the motivations of clients of you know, of that mix shift from their end. Thank you very much.

Michael A. Belshe: Thanks, Joe. Look. 1 of the least sexy things that we do, but probably the most important things that we do is getting the regulatory standing right behind what we do at BitGo. So our clients very much appreciate that we are OCC chartered national bank. They very much appreciate the regulatory standing that we have across the globe, whether you are talking about Germany or Dubai or Singapore. And in general, once they have gone through the onboarding and diligence process with BitGo, it is difficult to replicate that with multiple partners. So you are absolutely right. They could have traded in derivatives last year, the year before with a number of different parties.

Oftentimes, that means opening accounts offshore. Oftentimes, that means just, you know, opening accounts with you know, crypto native firms that may not match the kind of profile that they are they are looking to work with. So the desire to have this 1 stop where they come to BitGo, we are their counterparty. They know who we are. They been through our insurance. They have been through our SOC 1 or SOC 2. And all of our regulatory analysis. And now they are they are ready to do these activities. So right. They would have participated before. They just did not have quite the right partner.

Operator: And they are very happy to have Vicco helping. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to 1 question only for the remainder of the Q&A. Your next question comes from the line of Christopher with Rosenblatt. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Analyst (Chris): Hi. Thanks, and good afternoon, guys. Just wanted to dig a little deeper on the derivatives business. Obviously, it is still early days, but a good start for that business. And just wanted to know you know, as you think about the impact on the net margin there, is it safe to assume that the increase you have seen there is the majority of the increase seen there or maybe all of the increase we have seen in that net capture rate has been due to the addition of derivatives revenue without a denominator impact? And then can you talk at all about how you expect that business to contribute in the second quarter?

And then I also had 1 follow-up on the stablecoin-as-a-service business just, you know, sort of more detail on the growth and partners there and how the book will look as you grow away from just having World Liberty, you know, how significant are the non-World Liberty assets expected to be as you progress through the year? Thank you.

Edward Reginelli: Thanks, Christopher. I can add to that. Yes. So the take rate or the margin that we saw during Q1 as we referenced, was benefiting from the net reporting of derivatives. If you just look at the spot business, it is very consistent To what we experienced in Q4. So there. Those margins have not varied very much. And we have continued to experience that into the future. As we get more and more of the derivative trades that will hopefully help influence our net take rate much higher. To the future.

Michael A. Belshe: And then on the, stablecoins, I am not sure how to quite answer it. We do have some clients that we cannot preannounce. it is unfortunate. So we cannot announce clients that are not ready to be announced yet. So, unfortunately, I am gonna have to ask you to stay tuned. On the I guess, thing I did not mention, but, you probably have seen it, This last quarter, we did launch what we call our Mintz and Burn Center. it is a place where all of our you know, 5.6 thousand clients can mint and burn directly in the assets that are straight from BitGo.

We have got partnerships You know, the intention is not to limit it to just the Bitco stablecoins. And then you can convert between stablecoins all kinda right there. Additionally, you can do programmatically, so it is super easy. If you have got your agentic bots running, they can completely do API, do these types of conversions as well. I think there is probably more agentic announcements that have happened so far than real meaningful deployments, but we do see this as an important part for the future.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Dan Dolev with Mizuho. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Dan Dolev: Hey, guys. Really nice results here. Congrats. From us. Have a question on the bank and trust. So Bitcoin now holds bank and trust, National Bank Charter from the OCC. This puts you in our view in a pretty exclusive category amongst crypto native firms. Maybe beyond the obvious trust and compliance signaling what does the charter concretely unlock in terms of new revenue lines? Thank you. Thanks for asking.

Michael A. Belshe: Actually, by the way, 1 thing I would like to impress upon folks that may not be aware of kind of BitGo's history I think we might be the first OCC charter bank that converted in a day. And usually what happens is and there is a lot of people that are in the application process with the OCC. Usually, what happens is you get a conditional approval, and then it can be, like, 9, 12, 18 months while you go and build the necessities for the OCC level of a bank. In BitGo's case, we were conditionally approved We had to write a check to fill the regulatory capital in the next day we were operating.

So you know, doing these activities is something we have been doing for a long time. And so to answer your question, the reason that is important is because you know, when we built, you know, Bigo Trust Company out of South Dakota back in 2020 it was pretty limited in scope of what it could do. I mean, all we wanted to do is to be able to kinda hold these assets in a fiduciary manner in a way that was bankruptcy remote, that was safe for clients, our institutional clients to understand. But then every time we wanted to do something new, it was, like, more licensing.

It was more updates to the business plan, working with regulators, and it was it was kind of slow. So as we went into the OCC process, you know, we put everything in there. So from trading to staking to, of course, custody, etcetera, these are all things that the regulator is familiar with in our business. it is part of our business plan. The OCC has worked with us on and by the way, they have been great. Really appreciative of their efforts there. So overall, we feel like we have got the best standing with that OCC charter and the business plan that is approved. In there. So it is pretty all inclusive.

So I do not know if you had a particular area that you wanted to drill into, but I mean, look, obviously, the services that we have up on top of custody already. Those are where we are growing, and then this all grows towards prime brokerage.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Cassie Chan with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Analyst (Cassie Chan): Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask, you know, it seems like the number of clients continues to grow and ticked up again this quarter. How has the profile of these clients have changed in terms of AUM, or are they actually using, you know, multiple products in addition to custody? Right from the start now? Just curious if that is evolved as well. Thank you.

Michael A. Belshe: Thanks, Cassie. Well, as I mentioned earlier, look, we have a lot of crossover between our services for our clients. That continues to do well for us. We should probably measure it for the next the next reporting period. Maybe we will talk about it next time more. But it is all, I think, been positive. The profile of the client is changing in terms of we have the whole new addressable market, which is the traditional financial firms coming to Bitcoin.

So we also have some announcements here that are not yet announced yet, but deals that are already signed in ink which you will be hearing about, I think, in this quarter, which are exciting from firms that, you know, just a year ago, would not have been listed in any type of crypto or digital asset related product. So we are seeing that shift I do think clarity, remains the next I do not know if I want to call the hurdle, maybe the next, graduation point. Where a number of maybe the more conservative firms will also be looking and solidifying their digital asset plans.

But right now, it seems like everybody's growing, and you can see there is a heated race among the new entrants to try to be fastest and the best. So I think that is creating a bit of FOMO among those players that have not been in digital assets yet and we are seeing all of those and all of those RFIs and all those RFIs.

Operator: Your final question comes from the line of Steven Glagola with KBW. Your line is open.

Analyst (Steven Glagola): Hi. Thanks, Mike, and Edward for the question. Could you unpack more on some of the prepared remarks around how you guys are thinking about balancing the reinvestment and strategic growth initiatives around product, platform, regulatory capability that you called out, while also driving operating leverage for, you know, sustained positive and growing EBITDA over time? Thank you.

Michael A. Belshe: Yeah, great. So we have been through, I think, 3 or 4 kind of up and down cycles in Bitcoin over the years, and you know, sometimes these down cycles are the best times to be building. And, especially, you know, AI is absolutely helping us on the build. So we do not see any need for, like, additional cost of any material type. Of course, you are always watching to see you know, where are the cost of the business. We did have onetime expenses around, you know, the IPO itself and some legal costs that are associated with that. I think those were typical. And then for the most part, like, we are we are building.

I think there is a strong demand for this tokenized equities component and you know, being first. Know, 1 of the things we have is I think, the broadest support of L1s and L2s of any major custodian, certainly much larger than Coinbase and Anchorage. And staying ahead there does require, you know, that we continue to build. So we will continue to build there. But of course, we are always watching the bottom line. We wanna make sure that we are building a healthy business. Think that we are well within those parameters right now.

And then as the market exits its bear cycle, I think you are going to see real wins on all the economic measures out of BitGo.

Operator: We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back to Mike Belshe for closing remarks.

Michael A. Belshe: Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. To close, I just want to come back to 3 points. First, underlying monetization has held up better than the gross revenue presentation would suggest. We are encouraged to see our team launching our derivatives trading products as we talked about our overall our high overall margin and take rates across digital asset sales, staking, and stablecoin-as-a-service are great. Second and most importantly, we continue to strengthen the business itself. We launched new capabilities, expanded business lines, added clients and partners, We advanced the stablecoin infrastructure and continued investing in the people and the platform.

That we believe will drive long term benefits and grow. that is the business we are building, and it is the lens through which we believe investors should evaluate our progress as well. Finally, BitGo remains uniquely positioned as the institutional grade digital asset infrastructure platform, the secure, regulated control layer for digital assets, and all the new entrants see that capability. Our advantage is the combination of regulatory standing, security architecture, and the breadth of capabilities that we provide within a single integrated platform.

We are operating in a large and evolving market, we continue to see encouraging demand across all areas of the business, Importantly, while reported asset values were impacted by lower digital asset prices during the quarter, the normalized assets on platform and normalized staked balances continue to grow meaningfully which we believe will drive upside in our model as the digital asset prices recover. So thank you, everybody.

Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.

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