Weekly Newsletter, 16 May 2025

Crypto M&A: consolidation before lift-off?

Last week we highlighted that securities are moving on chain in another example of blockchain technology starting to supplant, dare I say, antiquated, finance solutions. We thought this week we should highlight how blockchain and traditional finance firms are, quite literally, starting to merge.

In the past 8 weeks alone, more than $7bln of takeover firepower has been deployed. A few examples:

* Exchanges: Coinbase (who this week became the first crypto company to enter the S&P 500) is spending $2.9 billion to fold Dutch options titan Deribit into its platform, aiming to offer spot, futures and options from a single wallet. One month earlier, Kraken wrote a $1.5 billion cheque for U.S. retail-futures broker NinjaTrader, a bridge between crypto liquidity and traditional derivatives traders

* Payments: Payments giant Stripe entered its largest acquisition to date, a $1.1 billion takeover of stablecoin middleware firm Bridge, that has already yielded “stablecoin financial accounts” in over 100 countries. Visa followed suit with a strategic stake in London-based BVNK, a platform processing $12 billion in on-chain transactions a year

* Institutional plumbing: Ripple’s $1.25 billion purchase of multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road plants a crypto firm at the heart of institutional financing and cross-margining

Crypto M&A, Coinbase’s entry into the S&P 500, upcoming IPOs of crypto exchange Kraken and stablecoin issuer Circle, as well as the recent eToro IPO are yet another signifier that crypto is infiltrating the world of traditional finance.

Aside from the fact that this was simply unimaginable only a year ago, there are 3 interesting points to take away from all this. Firstly, validation. When public companies and payment incumbents commit multi-billion budgets, the question is no longer whether blockchain rails will be used, but by whom and how fast. Secondly, this is consolidation before liftoff. Like the early internet, the industry is pivoting from experimentation to industrial build-out. This is understandably starting in finance: derivatives venues, prime brokers and stablecoin gateways are being rolled into full-service networks ahead of the next wave of users. The last point is that initially the biggest premiums are being paid for the picks and shovels. That’s where durable value accrues when mainstream balance sheets step in.

Also this week

Relevant financial updates

Privasea, a network that introduces a unique solution for AI data privacy challenges, integrating Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) with blockchain incentives, had its TGE and is now trading at a $84mln FDV
WonderFi, a publicly traded company that provides investors with diversified investment exposure in the global digital asset ecosystem, has been acquired by Robinhood for $178mln
CryptoPunks*, a famous digital art project owned by Yuga Labs*, has been sold to the nonprofit NODE Foundation for an undisclosed amount
Headquarters, a company offering financial services to Web3 companies, has been acquired by Gnosis* for $15mln
Mountain Protocol*, a regulated financial platform providing USDM, a yield-bearing stablecoin with 5% APY, has been acquired by Anchorage for an undisclosed amount
XSY.fi, a DeFi capital management platform focused on enhancing liquidity and capital efficiency, has raised $5mln in a Pre-Series A funding round with investments from Borderless Capital, Protagonist, Paper Ventures, and 3 others
XP, a ticketing resale exchange built with Solana rails, has raised $6.2mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Blockchange, L1D, and Reflexive
Giza*, a company focused on building an open economy for artificial intelligence by turning machine learning models into smart contracts, has raised $5.20mln in a funding round with investments from CoinFund, Contango Digital Assets, Stake Capital Group, Echo, Arrington Capital and 3 others
T-REX*, a layer-1 blockchain platform incentivizing user engagement with crypto rewards for consuming content on platforms like X and TikTok, has raised $17mln in a funding round with investments from Framework Ventures, SNZ Holding, Hypersphere Ventures, ArkStream Capital, North Island Ventures and 4 others
Metaplanet Inc., a publicly traded company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange that has reoriented its corporate strategy to focus on Bitcoin, has raised $21.25mln in a Debt Financing funding round
Turtle Club*, a distribution protocol designed to monetize Web3 user activities such as liquidity deployment, swaps, staking, and referrals, has raised $6.20mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Selini Capital, ConsenSys, Laser Digital, Susquehanna International Group, Chorus One and 30 others
DoubleUp, a Sui blockchain-based casino platform providing KYC-free gaming, memecoin creation via Pumpup, and SUI staking for payouts, as raised $4mln in a Seed funding round with investments from Selini Capital, Comma3 Ventures, Karatage, Mysten Labs, Auros Global and 11 others
Nirvana Labs*, a company offering blockchain infrastructure services focused on nodes and cloud solutions for Web3 applications, has raised $6mln in a funding round with investments from Jump Crypto, Castle Island Ventures, Hash3, RW3 Ventures and Crucible Capital
Perpl, a DeFi platform on Monad, providing perpetual futures trading via a central limit order book, has raised $9.25mln in a funding round with investments from Hashkey Capital, Dragonfly, CMS Holdings, Mirana Ventures, Brevan Howard and 15 others
Squads*, a company that specializes in Solana-based account abstraction development and secure smart wallet solutions, has raised an undisclosed amount in a Strategic funding round with investments from Haun Ventures
KYD Labs*, a company that provides a white-label ticketing platform for music venues, live event creators, and artists, has raised $7.10mln in a funding round with investments from Techstars, Crypto Startup School (CSX), Finality Capital Partners, Ambush Capital, Nakul Gupta and 4 others

*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 16/05

Interesting things to read

Apollo’s Head of Digital Assets Christine Moy explains why they created their onchain credit fund on the Empire podcast

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