Disclosure And Trust As Bottlenecks For Token Markets

Issue 83 Edition 2026-03-24 8 min read

General

Sources: 1 • Confidence: Medium • Updated: 2026-04-11 16:57

Key takeaways

Within about two years, token issuer IR is predicted to shift toward proactive, engaging, social and in-person experiences, with broad adoption of this style across the space.
Over the last four years, the number of tokens in existence increased by roughly 35 million while overall market capitalization was basically flat.
Blockworks IR combines curated analytics, branded investor portals, and advisory support to help onchain businesses present an investor story using real-time onchain data.
The Blockworks IR platform is described as providing engagement analytics and investor intelligence, including identifying which investors engage and inferring their onchain exposures and holding behavior.
The number of U.S. public companies is described as having fallen to about half over the last ~20 years, while the cost of being public is described as roughly quadrupling, including about $2.2 million per year in auditing and compliance costs.

Within about two years, token issuer IR is predicted to shift toward proactive, engaging, social and in-person experiences, with broad adoption of this style across the space.
Token underperformance is primarily a trust problem driven by market-structure issues (too many assets, fragmented liquidity, unclear value accrual) and information issues.
Crypto investors are often missing regular disclosures and standardized reporting, leading to incomplete or missing data for diligence.
Poor information quality and lack of transparency contribute to bad market structure and repeated investor mistakes in crypto.
Crypto can build a better investor-relations model than traditional finance because protocols have substantial operating and financial history available transparently and in real time onchain, enabling lower-overhead reporting and storytelling.
Standardized, regularly available information is described as table stakes for token issuers, and the industry should lead on disclosures rather than waiting for regulators.

Over the last four years, the number of tokens in existence increased by roughly 35 million while overall market capitalization was basically flat.
After adjusting for the growth in the number of tokens, the average token market cap is down about 50% versus 2021 levels.
After accounting for token supply inflation, the average token price is down about 80%.
The historical linkage between onchain revenue growth and token price performance broke in 2025, with record onchain revenue not translating into token price gains.
Token performance has lagged such that an institutional bull market has not benefited most tokens.

Blockworks IR combines curated analytics, branded investor portals, and advisory support to help onchain businesses present an investor story using real-time onchain data.
Blockworks launched Blockworks IR at the Digital Asset Summit in New York, with BNB and JITO as inaugural clients.
Blockworks IR is described as a three-part offering: standardized data publication, IR services (including quarterly reports and investor calls), and an end-to-end workflow platform.
The Blockworks IR platform is described as a branded, standardized investor-relations website for protocols where investor materials and data are centralized similarly to public company IR pages.

The Blockworks IR platform is described as providing engagement analytics and investor intelligence, including identifying which investors engage and inferring their onchain exposures and holding behavior.

The number of U.S. public companies is described as having fallen to about half over the last ~20 years, while the cost of being public is described as roughly quadrupling, including about $2.2 million per year in auditing and compliance costs.

Within about two years, token issuer IR is predicted to shift toward proactive, engaging, social and in-person experiences, with broad adoption of this style across the space.

What is Blockworks IR’s pricing structure (software fees, service retainers, per-report costs), and how does it compare to incumbent IR agencies or internal staffing costs?
What standardized metrics, definitions, and reporting templates does Blockworks IR publish, and how are they kept consistent across chains and protocol types?
How does the platform infer investor identity, onchain exposures, and holding behavior from engagement, and what are the accuracy/false-positive rates and privacy constraints?
Do investors actually use these IR portals as primary sources of truth, and does usage measurably reduce diligence time or change allocation decisions?
Are the token-market quantitative claims (token count increase, flat aggregate market cap, adjusted average market cap/price declines) reproducible under clearly defined token universes and survivorship controls?

Standardized disclosure and proactive token issuer IR may become table stakes, benefiting vendors that package repeatable portal plus services workflows using onchain data.
Token proliferation with flat aggregate market cap implies attention and capital are more competitive, increasing the value of trust and disclosure tooling that reduces diligence friction.
Issuer IR may evolve toward measurable engagement and segmentation if investor identity and exposure inference from onchain behavior is reliable enough to support CRM like loops.

Broad adoption evidence within about two years: more issuers running proactive, social, in person IR and using standardized investor portals as recurring distribution.
Demonstrated utility: investors use portals as primary reference and issuers report measurable reductions in diligence time or improved allocation outcomes tied to disclosure cadence.
Validated investor intelligence: disclosed methodology, accuracy and false positive rates, and privacy constraints for mapping engagement to identity, exposures, and holding behavior.

Issuer behavior does not shift meaningfully toward proactive IR and portals remain niche, with limited repeat usage or low conversion from engagement to investor action.
Inference claims fail scrutiny: high error rates, privacy limitations, or inability to link engagement to credible investor profiles and exposures reduce value of engagement analytics.
Core market structure thesis not borne out: standardized disclosure does not correlate with improved trust indicators or investor outcomes, and issuers revert to ad hoc communications.