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Blockchain LabTHE VENTURE STUDIO

NYSE: BTGO

BitGo

BitGo is the custodian Mike Belshe took public in January 2026. He now says he wants prime brokerage, not custody fees, to be the business.

You are deciding whether to build the ledger that has to survive a shift from 'we store it' to 'we trade, lend, and settle it', at a listed company, in Palo Alto, on a USD base the posting calls an average.

The company you would actually join

Blockchain Lab analysis

Public reporting and the employer’s own releases. Not a relationship with Blockchain Lab. Not a credit opinion.

Founded
2013, by Mike Belshe, as the Wall Street Journal described at the IPO.
Base
This seat is Palo Alto. The company has talked about other offices. The posting does not say remote.
Status
Public. NYSE: BTGO. Employee equity is stock, not a private option against a 2023 mark.
People
Mike Belshe, co-founder and chief executive. The Journal said that at the IPO he would control more than half the voting power.

BitGo spent a decade charging institutions to hold coins with a serious key ceremony. The January 2026 listing priced that franchise at $18 a share and, by the close, about $2.1 billion. The Journal also printed a first-half 2025 revenue figure of $4.19 billion, up from $1.12 billion. Treat that number as a prompt to read the 10-K. Crypto infrastructure companies have a habit of booking gross activity as revenue. Net income is the line that tells you whether the ledger you would build is a profit centre.

Eight months later the founder said the quiet part. Custody is a cost. Prime brokerage — making the client money via trading, lending, and settlement — is what he wants to be the whole company. A senior engineer on accounting and ledger systems is not a back-office courtesy in that plan. Every new product the posting names, margin and lending and staking and tokenized assets, has to land in a chart of accounts without a migration. Double-entry is the requirement they wrote down. If you cannot talk about a balance sheet, the band is irrelevant.

Founders

Mike Belshe

Co-founder and CEO

The Journal credits him with pioneering the multi-signature wallet and credits him with voting control after the IPO. On 6 October 2026 he told Bloomberg, in Singapore, that prime brokerage should become the engine and custody should stop being a cost centre. The Palo Alto ledger role sits on that sentence.

What the company sells

Custody

The historical product. Belshe told Bloomberg on 6 October 2026 that nobody wants to pay for it, and that he does not want to charge for it.

Prime brokerage

Trading, financing, settlement. He said he would like that to be 100% of revenue. The ledger seat is how new products — margin, lending, staking, tokenized assets — land in the books.

The books

Accounts, postings, chart of accounts, and the join between chain balances and financial statements, including proof-of-reserve style checks. Employer language.

Capital

IPO price

$18

January 2026. Look up BTGO before you value a grant.

Debut close

About $2.1 billion

Journal, 22 January 2026. A debut mark, not a target.

H1 2025 revenue

$4.19 billion

Journal, versus $1.12 billion a year earlier. Read the filing for what 'revenue' includes. Gross flow is not profit.

This seat's base

$180k–$220k USD

Employer calls it an average by level and location. Equity and bonus are extra.

  1. 22 Jan 2026

    IPO

    $212.8 million at $18

    The Wall Street Journal: about 11.8 million shares at $18, above the expected range, raising $212.8 million. Ticker BTGO. Shares opened near $22.43 and closed at $18.49, a valuation the Journal put at $2.1 billion that day. Not today's price.

What should change your mind

  • Voting control. A listed share is not the same thing as a say.
  • Revenue quality. Read the filing. Do not interview on the Journal's headline figure alone.
  • Strategy shift in public. Prime brokerage is a different risk business from custody, including for the person who models it.
  • Palo Alto is the location. Do not invent a remote exception.

Ask them

  • What does the latest 10-Q call revenue, and what is operating income?
  • Is this ledger the system of record for the prime-brokerage push, or a parallel book?
  • What is actually published today as proof of reserves?
  • Equity: RSUs or options, which class, and against which trading price?

Sources

If a figure is not in those sources, it is not in this brief on purpose.

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