Year of M&As: The ecological reshuffle and power shuffle of the 2025 Web3 giant

By KarenZ, Foresight News

The year 2025 was the "year of acquisition" of giants。

Looking back at the year's acquisition, the mere "big fish eat small fish" is no longer enough to sum up the dramatic changes in the market。

From Coinbase's $2.9 billion in revenue from Deribit to Stripe's $1.1 billion in purchases of Bridge, Wallet Buyer Privy, and Naver's "Current Union" with Upbit's mother, the acquisitions are no longer just for the purpose of eliminating competitors, but rather for the purchase of compliance plates, the completion of business boards, the improvement of their ecology, and the creation of a "supervisor's" link between Web2 and Web3。

From the "all-in-house" competition of the exchange to the Web3 infrastructure of the Web2 giant, from the run-off of the new stable currency to the consolidation shuffle of the vertical track, every deal is reshaping the future of the encryption industry。

This paper will take stock of key acquisitions in the Web3 industry in 2025 and try to analyze, through these capital moves, some of the major trends behind the 2025 wave of acquisitions。

"All-in-all" competition in mainstream exchanges

Coinbase: The ambition of building the Everything Exchange

Coinbase's performance during the year was called the "merger and acquisition monster" and its strategic intent was so clear: to expand the chain to the outside, to fill the inside with the derivatives。

• Take the derivative throneIn August, Coinbase bought Deribit at $2.9 billion (cash + stocks). This is not just a deal, but a transfer of power. By taking over the absolute hegemony of the options market, Coinbase quickly filled its largest niche in the field of professional transactions and had the background for a positive confrontation with other mainstream exchanges in the derivatives sector。
• Chain infrastructure closed: Neither the acquisition of Solana Ecoecology Victor.fun, nor the acquisition of the DeFi Derivatives Agreement Opyn and the browser products Roam, DeFi Project Sensible, Coinbase are trying to turn the "link operation" into its "native experience" in App。
• Incoming newIn October, after a $375 million acquisition of Echo, Coinbase went online on an end-to-end token sales platform with the first sale being Monad and plans to conduct a monthly token sale in the future. This move means that Coinbase is evolving into a role in a first-level market financing platform。
• Privacy protectionProtection of privacy is also included in the strategy of Coinbase. In March, Base announced the acquisition of the Iron Fish Development Team to develop a privacy protection language for Base。
• Content and advertisingFrom the acquisition of Spindl (advertising technology) to the Up Only NFT (content podcast), Coinbase is building a self-sufficient flow ecology that is no longer dependent on external blood transfusions。

As can be seen, Coinbase is moving from an "exchange" to an "exact." Whether it be derivatives, spot, stable currency issuance, token sales or chain applications, it all points to the same goal: to become the "super application" of the Web3 world, allowing users to complete the full demand from investment to consumption within the Coinbase ecology。

Robinwood & Kraken & Currency & Backpack

Other mainstream exchanges have also not stopped, expanding global maps and asset classes through mergers and acquisitions。

• The Global Expansion of RobinhoodThe completion of the $200 million acquisition of Bitstamp in June and the distribution of WonderFi to Canada in May (the $179 million acquisition deal) marked the complete removal of the label "U.S. Diaspora" by Robinhood and its geographical expansion through compliance plates。
• Kraken's Reverse Crossing BorderThe purchase of a US retail futures trading platform with $1.5 billion, Ninjatrader, is Kraken's most ambitious cross-border move. Kraken is no longer satisfied with encrypted asset transactions, but is trying to become a comprehensive trading platform across TradeFi and Cripto that will introduce shares, forecast markets and options in the future. At the same time, Kraken also acquired from IG Group $100 million the designated contract market supervised by CFTC, Small Exchange, and acquired assets, proprietary trading platforms and assets of the Israel codeless trading company Capitalise.ai, Breakout, in addition to obtaining MIFID licences for the supply of derivatives in the EU through the acquisition of the Cyprus Investment Corporation。
• Money: Money-security has gradually defused regulatory pressures, obtained a full regulatory mandate from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Marketplace (ADM) and strengthened Asia-Pacific market position through the acquisition of Gopax in Korea, the introduction of US$ 2 billion in MGX investments and the acquisition of 40 per cent of its shareholding in Japan by a soft silver group subsidiary, PayPay。
• Backpack: COMPLETION OF ACQUISITION OF FTX EU IN APRIL, INTRODUCTION OF PRODUCT PACKAGES FOCUSED ON THE EU。
• IG Group: The UK Online Trading Platform, IG Group, purchased the Australian Encryption Exchange (AUSE) with $117.41 million to expand its digital products and layout in the Asia-Pacific region。

Payment versus stabilization currency: the "new capital" of the financial giant

The stabilization currency is at a critical turning point in moving from the inner circle of instruments to “commercial payments”. Web2 Payment giants and traditional financial institutions are no longer watching, but instead are going to take the coin rights and circulation networks directly through mergers and acquisitions。

Stripe: The Silicon Valley Crediator's "Stabilizing Currency."

Stripe paid $1.1 billion to buy Bridge as an annual landmark event. Bridge is applying for a bank trust license, in conjunction with the extensive business network of Stripe, which means that Stripe wants to become not just a payment route, but a "central bank" between French and encrypted currency. At the same time, Stripe's wallet-buying service provider, Privy, has exposed its ambition to control the Web3 user portal and keep hundreds of millions of users out of the loop。

Mastercard: Trying to take direct control of the encryption bottom

Mastercard is negotiating a $1.5 billion to $2 billion acquisition of the initial company Zerohash, the encryption currency and stabilization currency infrastructure, which shows that the traditional card organization does not want to become a conduit and tries to take direct control of the encryption facility at the bottom。

Ripple: Large-scale brokers, stable currency ecology

Ripple has transformed from a single payment network to a "institutional lending + stable currency issuance + corporate treasury management" comprehensive financial service provider through the purchase of large brokers, Hidden Road (now known as Ripple Prime), a $200 million stabilization currency payment platform, Rail, and a $1 billion global financial management system, GTreasury. The roll-out of the RLUSD stabilization currency is backed by a strong scene。

Paxos & Circle: DeFi Connect + Conformity River

Fordefi and Memblane Finance, the technical providers of the institution-level hosting and wallets of the Kircle acquisition of the monetization company Hashnote, Paxos, over $120 million, are strengthening their capacity in DeFi connectivity and European compliance (MiCA) through M&As to cope with the competition of payment giants。

Entry of Internet giants and real industries

When Korea’s Internet giant Naver “swallows” the Upbit parent company Dunamu in exchange, we saw the ultimate pattern of Web3 mergers and acquisitions: flow, payment, complete integration of AI and Crystal。

• Naver + DunamuIt's a perfect complement. Naver controls traffic access and payment networks, the Dunamu subsidiary Upbit is the largest encrypted trading platform in Korea. The two sides made a $6.8 billion joint investment plan to AI and the block chain area, working towards a new generation of financial infrastructure based on AI and block chain technology。
• Rumble + Northern Data: Video platform Rumble buys Northern Data, which is based on the mining background of Bitcoin, which appears to be an arithmetical contest, whereas Tether (as the major shareholder behind it) uses encrypted capital to feed the AI infrastructure. This marks the beginning of a "defeating" of encrypted capital, competing for the calculus pricing power of the AI era。

"Big fish eat small fish" in business expansion and vertical areas

In addition to the spotlight, M&As in the areas of infrastructure and forecasting markets are equally intense。

• Syndication of infrastructure layers: Chainalysis acquired Alterya, Talos acquired Coin Metrics. This suggests that institutional investors need no longer simple data, but "smart intelligence" that can be laundered through AI and used for wind control and trading decisions。
• Energy integration of mining: MARA buys over $168 million in shares of the EDF Group subsidiary Exaion 64 per cent, Riot "incorporate" Rhodium assets at a total price of $185 million, Bitfarms completes the whole stock acquisition transaction for Strongold Digital Mining with more than $110 million。
• LayerZero cross-chain integration: In August, the Trans-chain Asset Transfer Protocol LayerZero acquired approximately $110 million to further integrate cross-chain liquidity。
• Polymarket’s America ExpansionPolymarket spent $112 million on the acquisition of QCX and its approval by the CFTC, marking the final release of Polymarket from the “grey zone” as a regulated formal derivative market in the United States。

2025

By combing these dozens of transactions, we can clearly see the logic behind the takeover wave of 2025:

The "all-in-house" evolution of the exchange

Exchanges act as a flow point for the encryption industry, whose M&A actions directly determine market patterns. In 2025, the M&A strategy of the head exchange was characterized by a dual feature of "horizontal expansion plus vertical deep tillage"。

Coinbase initiated multiple M&As, which are no longer content with spot transactions, but rather complement derivatives, chain transactions, DeFi, new and privacy. Kraken's acquisition of Bitstamp and Kraken's reverse acquisition of Ninja Trader also indicate that the giants are building the moat through a whole-storey layout。

Compliance plates are the core of the merger

The era of regulatory arbitrage had ended and compliance had become a ticket. Coinbase's acquisition of Cyprus CIF license plates, Kraken's acquisition of MiFID license, Paxos' acquisition of Memblane's acquisition of EU E-money license plates reflects the strategic logic of “licence first”. In particular, the United States ' GENIUS Act ' s strict restrictions on money-settling agencies have increased the price of the labels with bank licences or fiduciary qualifications。

Buying technology instead of building it

The Coinbase acquisition of Deribit not only gained market shares, but also incorporated its derivative pricing and wind control technology under the roof; LayerZero acquired Stargate at $110 million, quickly supplementing its cross-chain transmission capability; and the wallet company Exodus acquired Baanx and Monavate, with direct access to the payment card infrastructure. This strategy of "buying technology instead of building technology" has significantly reduced the product life cycle。

Institutional chemicals-based infrastructure needs

The process of institutionalization of the encrypted market has accelerated, contributing to the warming of infrastructure mergers and acquisitions. The Ripple Acquisition of Hidden Road was designed to meet the needs of the agency ' s large-scale brokers, whose operations increased threefold after the takeover; the Talos Acquisition of Coin Metrics, which provided more comprehensive transactional data support to institutions such as hedge funds; and the Paxos Acquisition of Fordefi, which addressed the safety and care of institutions entering DeFi. The inflow of institutional funds has increased the value of professional infrastructure。

Concluding remarks

The wave of encrypted M & As in 2025 was the result of a clash of forces: the expansion of giants, the recognition of regulation, the advent of traditional finance, and technological maturity。

This year, we saw the "all-in-the-all" evolution of the exchange, the perception by paying companies and financial infrastructure providers of stable currency as the next generation of infrastructure, the emergence of Internet giants touching the Cripto area or beginning to see Cripto as a mainstream business, and the emergence of arithmetic and AI as a new battlefield。

But we also need to recognize that the expansion of M&As does not represent an industrial solution. The key to the future is not "what to buy," but "how to integrate" – how to integrate acquired assets into a truly synergistic ecosystem, how to maintain innovation while meeting regulatory requirements, and how to protect market diversity in the context of a concentration trend。

The wave of M&As in 2025 has only just begun, and its real impact needs to be seen gradually over the coming years. But one thing is certain: the colossalization and ecologicalization of the encryption industry are irreversible。