Those who believe bitcoin’s 4-year cycles will continue to play out are expecting a new crypto bull market to start around November later this year (approximately 4 years from the previous bear market bottom, which took place in November 2022).
While there is no guarantee this will actually happen, how might crypto investors position their portfolio if they believed in this thesis?
The obvious answer might be to consider buying cryptocurrencies around November, as the crypto market tends to follow wherever bitcoin leads. But for those considering investing in crypto during the second half of 2026, there is another, sometimes overlooked way to gain exposure: crypto-related stocks.
A case for investing in crypto-related stocks
What’s a good way for investors to capture value from crypto’s potential growth? Spot crypto and crypto ETPs are not the only option. For some investors, crypto-related stocks—shares of companies that mine crypto, enable users to trade digital assets, build blockchain infrastructure, or are involved with other crypto-related activities—could be another opportunity to consider.
“Crypto-related stocks can be an effective vehicle to participate in secular growth opportunities of the crypto asset class,” says Coby Powers, a crypto analyst with Fidelity. During certain times in 2025, for example, the values of a few bitcoin mining company stocks outperformed that of bitcoin’s. One climbed over 640% from its 2025 opening price at one point during the year (though note that it also closed the year down over 56% from those highs), while bitcoin’s highest gain over its yearly opening price in 2025 was roughly 35%. Of course, keep in mind that past performance is no guarantee of future results.
While in the long run, buying and holding bitcoin may still be preferable for many investors (the crypto industry tends to mirror bitcoin’s price movements), investors looking to diversify their portfolios may also want to research crypto-related stocks.
What are the risks of investing in crypto-related stocks?
As with any asset class, crypto-related stocks come with unique risks. One important consideration is that they can underperform spot crypto just as easily as they can overperform. Crypto-related stocks can trade like penny stocks, where they drop substantially during a bear market and are never able to recover their value. For example, as of May 2026, one bitcoin mining stock that outperformed bitcoin in 2025 went on to drop over 89% when bitcoin started declining in October, whereas bitcoin fell 52%.
“Crypto-related stocks can be extremely volatile, and risk underperforming the market materially if bought at the wrong time of a market cycle, or if the underlying business is weak competitively,” says Powers. They also come with company-specific risks (i.e., variances in the quality of management, potential regulatory restrictions), and can trade at a premium or discount relative to the value of their underlying assets.
Also, unlike spot crypto, these stocks do not trade 24/7. If crypto makes a big move on the weekend, you may not be able to take profits or cut losses on your stock positions until the market opens on Monday morning.
Crypto-related stock sectors to watch
The landscape for crypto-related stocks can be divided into several sectors, some of which have overlap with non-crypto businesses. These include:
- Crypto exchanges and traditional investment platforms. Companies that operate platforms enabling customers to buy, sell, store, and transfer digital assets. Some are now offering tokenized stocks, which are digital assets that represent shares of publicly traded companies.
- Stablecoins and payments. Companies building solutions for blockchain-based financial transactions. Players in this space might issue stablecoins or build platforms that enable stablecoin transactions. After the GENIUS Act passed last year, some are working on both.
- Miners. Companies that mine crypto (most commonly bitcoin) through their own data centers and mining infrastructure. Since data centers have more use cases beyond just crypto, many companies in this space diversify their business models to also cater to the AI boom.
- Blockchain infrastructure. Companies building hardware including graphics processing units (GPUs) and other mining equipment, or software, including cybersecurity and IT solutions that power blockchain operations.
An emerging theme to watch is tokenization, where assets are represented and traded on a blockchain. “Tokenization is likely the next major technology adoption trend in crypto, so leaders in the theme could have a stronger chance of performing well in a new bull market,” says Powers.
Out of the sectors above, crypto exchanges, traditional investment platforms, and stablecoin-related companies fit this theme the best. As mentioned earlier, some crypto exchanges and traditional investment platforms already have tokenized stocks, which allow customers to trade representations of public companies 24/7 on a blockchain.
As for stablecoin-related companies, stablecoins are in and of themselves tokenized currencies. Moreover, their recent growth has been substantial. As of March 31, 2026, the total stablecoin market cap has hit approximately $315 billion, a 53% increase from early 2025.1 And with new crypto-friendly legislation like the CLARITY Act potentially set to pass later in the year, the sector has several possible tailwinds working in its favor.
Of course, this is not a guarantee that stocks related to tokenization will do well in a new bull market. But the current statistics around the sector’s growth are significant enough to make it watchlist-worthy.
What to consider before investing in crypto-related stocks
It's worth reiterating that picking individual stocks may come with a higher risk of underperformance. It may be more suitable for most crypto investors to stick to spot bitcoin, spot bitcoin ETPs, or a digital assets ETF, which more closely track crypto’s performance as a whole.
However, investors looking to diversify their portfolio may find value in researching crypto-related stocks.