Co-CEO Lane Kasselman Says Blockchain.com Is Built to Outlast

Blockchain.com started out as a way to watch money move, not trade it. The company launched in 2011 under the name blockchain.info, offering a free tool for tracking Bitcoin transactions across the network in real time. Co-CEO and president Lane Kasselman says that starting point still shapes the company's strategy, even as the broader crypto market slows and investor dollars chase artificial intelligence instead.

"It's fundamentally a gateway for access to crypto," Kasselman told podcast host Jackson Hinkle on a recent Roundtable Uncut interview. "So for individuals, institutions, and now even AI, we're the access point for all of those different groups to get to the crypto sector."

Building Beyond the Blockchain Explorer

The original Blockchain Explorer still operates today as a free reference tool, something Kasselman compares to a Bloomberg Terminal built for crypto. The business built on top of it has grown into three separate divisions. An institutional prime brokerage handles spot trading, custody, lending, and derivatives for hedge funds and market makers. A consumer wallet and brokerage app serves retail users directly. Blockchain Market Services, the newest arm, provides liquidity and treasury management to other crypto companies, including firms that run digital asset treasuries.

Blockchain.com counts more than 95 million wallets and over 43 million verified users across more than 100 countries, according to the company.

A Contrarian Approach to Crypto's Cycles

Lane Kasselman argues that the crypto firms that collapsed during past downturns were not undone by price swings alone.

"FTX and Celsius and BlockFi, each one had a different problem, a lot of them having to do with skirting the law," Kasselman told TheStreet.

Blockchain.com chose a slower, licensed path instead. "We've been a little bit slower to bring new products to market because we ask for permission. That means we get our licenses from regulators and we do it right," he said.

That approach showed up twice in the past six years. Bitcoin lost roughly 40% of its value the day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and crypto firms across the industry cut staff in response. Blockchain.com hired instead, wagering that the market would recover. Bitcoin went on to hit new all-time highs before the year was out.

The company repeated the bet during the 2022-2023 downturn, when Bitcoin fell 77% from its peak and Celsius and BlockFi both went under. Blockchain.com raised at least $110 million in new funding during that stretch, according to Tracxn data.

"Everyone said you shouldn't raise capital. But we did, and it turned out to be one of the best ideas ever," Kasselman said. "The way that we've been able to withstand so many market cycles over a decade of just extreme volatility is because we tend to believe in a counter-cyclical type of business model."

A Different Kind of IPO

Blockchain.com confidentially filed paperwork for a U.S. IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission in May. The filing came as several peers, including Kraken parent Payward, Consensys, Ledger and Grayscale, delayed their own listing plans.

Christian Lopez, head of blockchain and digital assets at Cohen & Company Capital Markets, told CoinDesk that capital has rotated out of crypto and into AI stocks this year, cooling appetite for new crypto listings. He added that investors now favor companies with more than one line of business. "A lot of crypto companies trying to raise capital in the private markets are finding it difficult because of their singular focus on one product offering," Lopez said.

Blockchain.com reflects that diversification. Its institutional brokerage, consumer wallet and Blockchain Market Services arm each bring in revenue on their own, rather than the company depending on one product line the way a single-purpose exchange or wallet provider does.

While other issuers remain stalled by the slowdown, Kasselman expects the broader IPO window to reopen. "I think you will see several crypto companies go public over the next six to 12 months," he said, pointing to a friendlier regulatory climate in Washington. Should its own listing proceed, Blockchain.com would become the oldest originally crypto-native company to trade on public markets.