Analysts at three Wall Street firms issued or reaffirmed bullish ratings on four crypto-linked public companies in recent weeks, arguing that the market is mispricing firms that have shifted their core business toward AI compute, capital markets services, and structured financial products. Benchmark, TD Cowen, and Mizuho Securities each made the case that Bitdeer (BTDR), DeFi Technologies (DEFT), Strive (ASST), and Gemini Space Station (GEMI) deserve valuation frameworks closer to fintech and infrastructure peers than to speculative trading venues. TD Cowen's initiation on Strive was dated April 9, 2026; the other two firms acted in May.

The timing matters. Crypto infrastructure M&A deals averaged 37.3 times revenue in Q1 2026, according to data from Finro FCA, the highest multiple in the fintech dataset; the median multiple was 19.3 times, indicating a wide distribution shaped by a small number of large outlier transactions. All four companies covered by these analysts trade at steep discounts to that benchmark. On a single day in May 2026, Wall Street deployed roughly $422 million into crypto infrastructure deals, including a $222 million token sale by Circle backed by BlackRock, Apollo, ICE, Standard Chartered, and Janus Henderson, and a $200 million debt facility for Ripple from Neuberger Berman. The capital flow signals institutional appetite that extends well beyond Bitcoin itself.

Bitdeer: From Megawatts to AI Revenue

Bitdeer is the most data-rich case in the group. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer holds a Buy rating with a $27 price target, citing the company's rapid shift toward AI cloud services. Its AI cloud annualized recurring revenue grew from roughly $10 million in January 2026 to approximately $69 million by April 2026, a near-sevenfold increase in four months and a pace of roughly 60% month-on-month at peak velocity. Q1 2026 revenue reached $188.9 million, doubling year-on-year, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive at $14.4 million compared to a $45.6 million loss in the same period last year. The company reported a Q1 net loss of $159.5 million, reflecting ongoing investment in capacity expansion. It operates about 3,003.5 megawatts of power capacity across the US, Norway, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Canada, and Malaysia, with GPU utilization running above 90% across more than 4,100 GPUs.

Palmer described the strategic logic plainly: "The in-house pivot is strategically sound as it improves the economics Bitdeer will derive from its planned artificial intelligence and high-performance compute facilities and positions it to shorten its path from megawatts to monetized megawatts."

A key catalyst in Palmer's thesis is a signed lease at Norway's Tydal site for 180 megawatts of AI colocation capacity. The deal expands Bitdeer's European footprint at a moment when access to low-cost, renewable power has become a scarce resource for compute infrastructure operators globally.

Bitdeer's Ethiopian site in the Oromia Region, currently at 40 MW online with another 20 MW awaiting grid connection, is one node in a broader thesis about cheap power as a scarce resource. As hyperscalers face energy constraints in the US and Europe, low-cost jurisdictions in Africa and South Asia are gaining strategic relevance for compute infrastructure.

DeFi Technologies and Strive: Different Models, Same Rerating Logic

DeFi Technologies operates as a vertically integrated capital markets business spanning crypto ETPs, OTC trading, and venture assets; Strive is a Bitcoin treasury company pursuing active yield strategies rather than passive accumulation. Despite those structural differences, Wall Street is applying the same rerating logic to both: each is being repriced as infrastructure rather than as a speculative vehicle.

DeFi Technologies reported Q1 2026 revenue of $11.2 million and net income of $4.9 million. Its Valor ETP subsidiary manages approximately $533.6 million in assets, down 32% year-on-year, but its Stillman Digital OTC desk grew commission revenue 38% to $2.9 million and is targeting around $12 million for the full year. CEO Johan Watterstrom has positioned the company as something different from a traditional asset manager: "less like an asset manager and more like a vertically integrated capital markets utility." Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer retained a Buy rating while cutting the price target to $2 from $3, using a valuation methodology of 12 times projected 2026 adjusted earnings per share of $0.15. The balance sheet holds approximately $156 million in cash, stablecoins, crypto, and venture assets against a market capitalization of roughly $275 million, a near-asset-value discount that Palmer identifies as a central pillar of the bull case. A Nasdaq minimum bid compliance issue adds near-term risk that investors should track.

Strive received a raised price target from TD Cowen, moving to $30 from $26, with analysts Lance Vitanza and Jonnathan Navarrete arguing the company can outperform spot Bitcoin ETFs through active yield strategies. Vitanza wrote that Strive "could outperform spot crypto ETPs through its operating businesses and treasury strategies, including bitcoin accumulation and staking income." Where Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) operates as a passive Bitcoin treasury, Strive's active approach is designed to generate returns above the spot price, a distinction that TD Cowen argues justifies a premium valuation. Strive held 13,628 BTC at the end of Q1 2026, growing to roughly 15,000 BTC by late April. Its projected 2026 BTC yield was revised up to 26.1% from 21.3%, implying approximately $263 million in projected BTC gains. The company also became the first public firm to launch daily dividend distributions on perpetual preferred shares (ticker: SATA), a structure designed to reduce volatility and attract a broader investor base.

Gemini: Contrarian Bet on a Company in Transition

Gemini is the most complicated story in the group. Since its September 2025 Nasdaq IPO at $28 per share, which valued the company at $3.3 billion, the stock fell to approximately $5.26 before recovering. That decline was accompanied by executive departures and a withdrawal from several international markets, context that gives material weight to the "company in transition" framing. Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev holds an Outperform rating with a $10 price target, cut from $12. The bull case rests on several data points: transaction revenue held flat even as trading volume dropped more than 50%, suggesting the company is earning more per trade; credit card revenue grew roughly 300% year-on-year and now accounts for about 30% of net revenue; and its prediction markets platform crossed 100 million contracts traded since December 2025, with April volume up 78% month-on-month and approximately 20,000 active traders on the platform.

In April, Gemini launched Agentic Trading, a system that lets AI models including Claude, ChatGPT, and others execute trades, monitor markets, and manage risk autonomously through its API using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The company also won a CFTC Derivatives Clearing Organization license, allowing it to clear and settle derivatives without a third party. Winklevoss Capital Fund followed with a $100 million capital injection in May, paid in bitcoin at $14 per share.

What This Means Outside the US

The rerating story has tangible regional implications. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded $205 billion in on-chain crypto transactions between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52% increase year-on-year. Regulatory frameworks in the region are hardening into law rather than remaining aspirational: Nigeria's Investments and Securities Act 2025 formally recognised digital assets as securities, and the Central Bank of Nigeria lifted restrictions on banks working with licensed crypto providers. South Africa, Kenya, and Mauritius are each advancing complementary frameworks that could eventually accommodate institutional-grade products. Bitdeer's Ethiopian operations sit inside this momentum. In South Asia, the Bhutan question is unresolved: the government has sold approximately 70% of its Bitcoin holdings, with reserves declining from roughly 13,000 BTC to approximately 3,954 BTC, and appears to have slowed mining activity, raising questions about whether Bitdeer's 500 MW Jigmeling facility will pivot toward AI workloads. For developers across both regions, Gemini's Agentic Trading API provides regulated, infrastructure-level access to autonomous trading tools that could, in principle, serve as building blocks for fintech and DeFi applications built outside the US.

Analysts project Gemini revenue at $239 million for 2026 and $330 million for 2027, with positive adjusted EBITDA not expected before 2028.

What the rerating ultimately means is that Wall Street is no longer pricing these companies on the basis of crypto market sentiment alone. The operative question has shifted: does each firm own infrastructure that retains value regardless of where Bitcoin trades? The answers are uneven. Bitdeer's power capacity and AI colocation pipeline, Strive's active yield strategies, DeFi Technologies' capital markets utility model, and Gemini's regulated trading infrastructure each represent a different wager on which layer of the crypto stack becomes durable. The next test will be Q2 earnings, where AI revenue trajectory at Bitdeer and OTC volume growth at DeFi Technologies will either validate or complicate the Wall Street narrative. That is Verse Press's read of where the evidence currently points.