Crypto deals hit a record US$8.6 billion as market strains grow

[PORTLAND] A record-breaking year for crypto mergers and acquisitions is facing a harsh reckoning since a recent rout in digital assets began to unravel industry gains spurred by a friendlier administration in the White House.

Capitalising on political tailwinds, major crypto firms have pushed deal values past US$8.6 billion this year to Nov 20, an all-time high and more than the four previous years combined, according to PitchBook Data. The trend fits with data from crypto advisory Architect Partners, which used a different methodology to find that related deals reached US$12.9 billion so far this year, up sharply from US$2.8 billion last year.

“Major crypto companies have become more acquisitive in 2025, with rate cuts, regulatory clarity and the crypto bull market earlier in the year shifting them into growth mode,” said Ben Riccio, an analyst at PitchBook.

The influx of capital was fuelled by massive deals involving crypto exchanges Coinbase Global and Kraken, and blockchain firm Ripple Labs. But much of the flurry of activity came ahead of an October sell-off that sent the crypto market spiralling, eventually wiping more than US$1 trillion in value from digital assets.

Among the largest acquisitions this year are Coinbase’s US$2.9 billion purchase of options exchange Deribit, Kraken’s US$1.5 billion acquisition of retail futures platform NinjaTrader, and Ripple’s US$1.25 billion purchase of prime broker Hidden Road. These deals helped 2025 blow past the 2021 record.

Coinbase has been the leading crypto M&A investor by far in recent years, according to PitchBook. The exchange was involved in 24 deals since 2020, and eight in the last 12 months.

The number of crypto deals also reached a record 133 this year, topping 2022 when just US$1.02 billion was spent across 107 deals.

Before this year, the industry’s high-water mark for dealmaking was 2021, when US$4.6 billion was spent, according to PitchBook. Crypto-friendly government policies this year from the administration of US President Donald Trump have encouraged more market activity. The exuberance helped push up cryptocurrency prices, with Bitcoin hitting a record US$126,251.31 in October before the sell-off.

Crypto market sentiment has turned sour since October, and the resulting bear market has weighed heavily on the sector’s publicly listed firms. Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, has shed a fifth of its market value this quarter, although it is up by more than 8 per cent this year. American Bitcoin, a crypto mining company with ties to the Trump family that went public in a September merger, is down by about 70 per cent since Oct 1.

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Now, digital asset treasury companies, whose primary business is buying and holding crypto, as Strategy has done with Bitcoin, that have gone public through special purpose acquisition companies, are also facing pressure.

“It remains to be seen how deal activity and valuations will be affected in the next few months if crypto prices stay depressed,” Architect wrote in a note this month. “We have already heard of some deals being cancelled due to market uncertainty, so stay tuned.” BLOOMBERG