Wall Street Values Crypto Firms as AI and Markets Platforms

On Monday, analysts at Benchmark, TD Cowen and Mizuho maintained buy-equivalent ratings on Bitdeer, DeFi Technologies, Strive and Gemini. Two of the four analyst notes lowered price targets to reflect compressed valuation multiples in payments and crypto sectors.

Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer reiterated a Buy rating and a $27 price target on Bitdeer, citing the company’s roughly 3.0 gigawatt global power portfolio across the U.S., Norway, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Canada and Malaysia and a shift into AI colocation. The Tydal site in Norway is expected to deliver about 180 megawatts of gross installed capacity built for AI workloads aligned with Nvidia reference architectures. Company management on its Q1 call reported advanced negotiations with a prospective investment-grade tenant and described pricing as favorable versus comparable transactions; Benchmark wrote a signed lease would likely serve as a rerating catalyst. Bitdeer's AI cloud annual recurring revenue rose from about $10 million at the end of January to roughly $69 million by the end of April. GPU deployment surpassed 4,100 units with utilization above 90% and customers are increasingly committing to three- to five-year contracts. In Q1, revenue more than doubled to $188.9 million from $70.1 million a year earlier, adjusted EBITDA turned positive at $14.4 million, while the company recorded a $39 million gross loss and a $159.5 million net loss tied to rapid miner deployment, higher electricity costs and elevated non-cash depreciation.

Benchmark also kept a Buy rating on DeFi Technologies and cut its price target to $2 from $3 using a 12x multiple on 2026 adjusted EPS of $0.15. DeFi reported Q1 revenue of $11.2 million and net income of $4.9 million. Average assets under management at its Valor ETP fell 32% year over year to $533.6 million. CEO Johan Wattenstrom described the company as “a vertically integrated capital markets utility for digital assets” and outlined plans for an in-house custody stack targeting a productized release in late Q3. Institutional OTC arm Stillman Digital grew trading commissions 38% year over year to $2.9 million and is tracking toward its full-year growth targets. DeFi faces a Nasdaq minimum bid compliance threshold and has about a year of runway across two 180-day compliance windows; management indicated any reverse split would likely be followed by significant share buybacks. The company ended Q1 with roughly $156 million in combined cash, stablecoins, crypto treasury holdings and venture portfolio value against a market capitalization near $275 million.

TD Cowen raised its price target on Strive to $30 from $26, citing a capital-formation structure for the company’s SATA perpetual preferred shares. Under the proposal, dividends would be declared monthly but paid in equal daily installments, a design the firm said should smooth trading spikes around record dates and improve SATA’s collateral profile. TD Cowen now expects SATA to account for about half of Strive’s total capital raised over its projection period, up from roughly 25% previously, and raised its 2026 bitcoin-yield estimate to 26.1% from 21.3%. The firm projects Strive will record about $263 million in bitcoin dollar gains in 2026. Strive held 13,628 BTC at the end of Q1.

Mizuho Securities USA managing director Dan Dolev maintained an Outperform rating on Gemini Space Station and lowered his price target to $10 from $12, citing current payment- and crypto-sector valuation multiples. Dolev pointed to a data point in Q1: transaction revenue remained essentially flat while trading volumes fell more than 50%, which he wrote indicates take-rate expansion and a shift in revenue mix away from spot trading. Credit card economics accounted for roughly 30% of net revenue in the quarter, up about 300% year over year. Prediction markets exceeded 100 million contracts with monthly volume up 78%. Dolev noted Gemini is building a regulated “edge stack,” including a DCO license and moves into clearing and agentic trading infrastructure. Mizuho projects positive adjusted EBITDA by 2028 and forecasts revenue rising from $239 million in 2026 to $330 million in 2027.

Each analyst note included specific financial metrics and operational updates intended to inform how investors might value these companies going forward.