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Figure Launches OPEN to Bring Public Equities Onchain — Interview with Co-Founder Mike Cagney

Last week, blockchain lender Figure announced the launch of its On-Chain Public Equity Network (OPEN), a new platform that allows companies to list and trade equity natively onchain

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Fiodar Yuzhyk & Maximilian Vargas
January 23, 2026

The first crypto IPO of 2026 just hit the market. Yesterday, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe rang the opening bell at the NYSE as the crypto custodian went public. Priced at $18 per share, the stock opened at $22.43 and closed at $18.69, giving the company a $2.2 billion market cap.

With BitGo listed, public markets now have their first pure crypto custody play, complementing miners (Marathon, Riot, etc.), exchanges (Coinbase, Gemini, Bullish), stablecoins (Circle), and investment firms (Galaxy). It’s another step toward broader institutional coverage across the value chain.

Also notable: via Ondo, BitGo shares launched with day‑one onchain access across Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain. No word yet on volumes, but we expect this to become the norm for crypto IPOs this year.

Today, we take you behind the scenes of:

  • Figure’s OPEN — Interview with Mike Cagney on tokenized equities

  • WalletConnect Pay: A rival to Visa and Mastercard?

HIGH SIGNAL NEWS

  • Galaxy plans to launch $100 million hedge fund. According to the Financial Times, 30% of the assets will be invested directly in crypto tokens, while the rest will flow into crypto-adjacent financial services stocks. 💸

  • Bitpanda expands further into traditional assets. Next week, the leading European crypto broker will enable trading in more than 10,000 stocks and ETFs in its app. The expansion comes ahead of the firm’s potential IPO, which could happen as early as the first half of 2026. 🐼

  • Anchorage rumoured to seek $400 million raise. According to Bloomberg sources, the digital asset firm wants to raise between $200 million and $400 million ahead of a possible initial public offering next year. 💰️

  • Bermuda aims to bring its economy onchain. Together with Coinbase and Circle, the government aims to pilot stablecoin payments across its agencies, expand USDC adoption among local businesses, and support financial institutions in integrating tokenization and other digital finance tools. 🇧🇲

  • Gusto pilots stablecoin integration. The payroll and HR platform, which serves more than 400,000 SMBs, is testing stablecoin-based payouts for workers outside the U.S. 💵 

→ For a real-time feed of high signal news, visit our News Aggregator.

ONCHAIN CAPITAL MARKETS

Figure Launches OPEN to Bring Public Equities Onchain — Interview with Co-Founder Mike Cagney

Onchain equity: Last week, blockchain lender Figure announced the launch of its On-Chain Public Equity Network (OPEN), a new platform that allows companies to list and trade equity natively onchain. Integrated into Figure’s existing stack, OPEN is designed to make shares directly usable for financing, enabling holders to borrow against and lend out stock while disintermediating the prime broker model.

  • Why it matters: As one of the largest blockchain-based lenders, Figure has originated over $22 billion in loans and built out a broad digital asset product suite, including its public blockchain network Provenance, a blockchain-based lending platform, and trading infrastructure for crypto and tokenized assets. With OPEN, it is now combining that stack to bring public equities natively onchain, at the same time as traditional incumbents like Nasdaq, DTCC, and NYSE take steps toward tokenized equities.

  • Market reaction: Since the announcement, $FIGR shares are up 28% in public markets.

Interview: In our conversation with Mike Cagney, co-founder and Executive Chairman at Figure, we discussed what OPEN enables beyond existing tokenization efforts, why he believes it will disrupt the traditional prime brokerage model, and how he expects onchain equity adoption and broader market structure to evolve over the next two years.

__________________

On what OPEN enables:

“In short, OPEN is a platform for issuing equities natively onchain. It lets public companies create a blockchain-native share class through standard filings like an S-1 or S-3. That share class can be held in wallets and used in modern financing workflows, giving equity more utility than in today’s intermediated stack.

The goal is to broaden access to public stocks globally while improving shareholder economics through better collateral and lending. And importantly, this works under existing securities rules today, without waiting for new regulation like the Clarity Act.”

How OPEN differs from other existing tokenization efforts:

“The core difference is native issuance. It removes the limits of wrapped versions of traditional securities and lets us integrate equity directly into our stack. The share is issued on the Provenance blockchain, traded on our Alternative Trading System (ATS), and plugs into the lending infrastructure we already operate, turning equity into something you can finance, not just hold.

That’s where the unlock sits. Equity becomes usable collateral in DeFi, enabling cross-margin setups traditional prime brokerage can’t offer, like borrowing cash against a basket of equity and crypto assets.

We also built for liquidity. Investors worried about being stuck in an illiquid share class, so we added a seamless conversion mechanism between Nasdaq shares and the onchain shares. This conversion is a no-cost, no-tax event, anchoring early liquidity and giving market makers confidence to quote both venues.”

On the concrete benefits OPEN delivers:

“OPEN delivers two core benefits:

First is lower overhead. Public equities still carry heavy operational costs, from shareholder ops to back-office workflows. With native onchain shares, processes like voting can happen directly in wallets, and institutions can reduce reconciliation and manual work.

Second is better lending economics for shareholders. Stock lending today is heavily intermediated. A borrower might pay 20% annualized while the lender receives 5%. The rest is captured by the prime broker. OPEN lets shareholders supply stock through a transparent market and capture the true clearing rate.”

On how OPEN adoption could unfold:

“We’ll start by going first. We plan to issue Figure stock through OPEN soon, so the market can see what changes when equity is issued natively onchain.

From there, adoption should compound. Once investors see that onchain shares deliver better utility and better economics, they’ll start pushing companies to adopt the model, because it no longer makes sense to stay in a structure where financing and lending value is captured by intermediaries.

Crypto-native firms and digital asset treasuries (DATs) will likely move first. DATs benefit in particular because onchain equity enables redemption-style mechanics between shares and the crypto assets held in their treasury. That can pull the stock price back toward par instead of relying only on the secondary market.”

On the timeline for onchain equity adoption and whether blockchain reshapes or mirrors today's market structure:

“People are underestimating how fast this moves. The last four years created complacency because regulation kept the industry from leaning in. That has changed.

By the end of 2026 I expect a robust equity market trading natively on blockchain. By the end of 2027, stablecoin payment rails will start eating meaningfully into interchange economics.

I don’t expect incumbents to disrupt themselves quickly. Blockchain is a structural shift, and disrupting a business that already works is hard. So you’ll see players like DTCC, Nasdaq, and NYSE adopt “blockchain” in ways that preserve the same intermediaries and economics, rather than moving to a public, self-custody model.

And that’s the line in the sand. If the outcome is simply today’s market structure mirrored on new rails, the industry missed the point.”

ONCHAIN PAYMENTS

WalletConnect Launches “WalletConnect Pay” to Enable Crypto Payments Beyond Visa and Mastercard

Crypto payments: Late last week, WalletConnect rolled out WalletConnect Pay, a new payments solution that lets users pay at both physical and online stores using crypto stored in their self-custodial wallet. The global launch is backed by Ingenico, the French payments technology provider, bringing WalletConnect Pay to its global network of more than 40 million point-of-sale terminals across 120 countries.

Why it matters: Crypto payments have grown rapidly, but mostly through card-linked workarounds. Monthly volume on crypto cards has surged from roughly $100 million in early 2023 to more than $1.5 billion by late 2025, implying a 106% compound annual growth rate. That growth, however, still relies on Visa and Mastercard rails, card issuance, and fiat settlement.

  • WalletConnect Pay takes a different approach. Instead of wrapping crypto in card infrastructure, it embeds crypto as a native payment method inside existing payment service provider (PSP) workflows, allowing merchants to accept onchain payments without changing their systems, handling crypto directly, or integrating wallet-by-wallet.

  • "The strong volume growth in crypto-linked cards demonstrates that there’s real demand to pay with crypto. We want to give users an option to do exactly that without having to get and set up a card, by paying directly from their wallet”, Jess Houlgrave, CEO of WalletConnect, told us.

How it works: For merchants, WalletConnect Pay functions like any other payment method. PSPs or terminal providers can enable it via a single integration, adding a “Pay with Crypto” option. At checkout, the terminal displays a QR code containing the payment request, which the customer scans with any WalletConnect-compatible wallet to approve an onchain transfer to the merchant’s PSP.

  • Behind the scenes, WalletConnect handles wallet connectivity, routing, and compatibility across hundreds of wallets and multiple blockchains, while PSPs retain their existing compliance, reporting, and settlement processes.

  • Merchants can choose to receive crypto or have their PSP convert the payment into fiat, so they can get paid without ever touching crypto.

Benefits: Bypassing card networks lets merchants get paid near-instantly and accept payments from any customer with a compatible mobile wallet. It also reduces intermediaries and can significantly cut fees.

  • “Take a large retailer operating on tight margins. Traditional card payments often carry fees of roughly 2-3%, which can materially impact profitability at scale. WalletConnect Pay operates at a fraction of those costs. Even modest fee reductions at this scale can translate into millions or even billions saved,” Houlgrave said.

Initial use cases: Houlgrave expects early traction in segments where crypto “solves a clear pain point,” from accepting payments from international travelers and high-risk categories like gaming to high-ticket purchases where cards often hit spending limits, such as premium hospitality.

Boosting adoption: To drive usage beyond these segments, WalletConnect on Tuesday launched a cashback-style rewards program offering up to 2% back. Rewards are funded by allocating a portion of WalletConnect Pay revenue to buy the protocol’s $WCT token on the open market and distribute it to eligible users.

  • Aligning incentives: The firm is also introducing interchange-like revenue sharing for participating wallets, giving wallet providers a direct incentive to support and promote payments.

Outlook: Merchant activations are expected to begin across Europe in Q1 and Q2 2026, with broader expansion to follow as PSPs roll out the service across their global merchant base.

Jelena Djuric is co-founder and CEO at Noble, a leading stablecoin infrastructure provider.

It’s a major step forward for payments that crypto can now be accepted directly at PoS devices, without relying on traditional card networks.

Mass adoption, however, won’t be frictionless. In today’s setup, acquirers that deploy and pre-configure PoS terminals earn a share of the 2-3%+ fee stack on card transactions. They have little incentive to accelerate a shift that compresses their own take.

But I expect this dynamic to change, because the real distribution power sits with merchants. If retailers can save basis points at scale, they will push for that option, and the ecosystem will adapt around merchant demand.

We’re already seeing early signs of this shift. Recent antitrust litigation suggests merchants may gain more flexibility to accept or reject high-interchange cards. That’s a meaningful step toward opening payment terminals to alternative rails, including solutions like WalletConnect Pay.

Superstate | $82.5 million | Series B : Tokenization and onchain equity issuance platform.

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Disclaimer: The information provided in the Crypto Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.

Disclosure: The On-Chain Public Equity Network (OPEN) includes a variety of services offered by the Figure Group of companies, which include its Alternative Trading System (“Figure ATS”) which is operated by Figure Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Check the background of this firm on FINRA's BrokerCheck.

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