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Crypto’s landscape is shifting fast with record-breaking deals, fresh legal frameworks, and bold moves reshaping the market’s future.
In today's edition:
- Crypto M&A activity soared past $8.6 billion in 2025, highlighting major strategic consolidations.
- The UK’s new law formally secures crypto assets as personal property, boosting legal clarity.
- Innovations and partnerships are accelerating, from scaling Ethereum to new hedge funds and fraud crackdowns.
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(OpenAI, gpt-image-1-mini)
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Mergers
Crypto M&A Hits Record $8.6B in 2025, Coinbase and Ripple Lead Strategic Acquisitions
Briefly: In 2025, crypto merger and acquisition activity smashed previous records, reaching $8.6 billion across 133 deals, with Coinbase and Ripple spearheading major strategic purchases that underscore growing confidence and consolidation in the crypto sector.
Key Information:
- Total crypto M&A value in 2025 surpassed $8.6 billion, exceeding the combined total of the previous four years.
- Coinbase completed six acquisitions including a landmark $2.9 billion buy of derivatives platform Deribit.
- Ripple acquired four companies totaling over $2.45 billion, strengthening its prime brokerage, treasury, and stablecoin capabilities.
- Kraken expanded its US derivatives footprint with five acquisitions including futures and tokenized stock platforms.
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Regulation
UK Enacts Groundbreaking Law Recognizing Crypto and Stablecoins as Personal Property
Briefly: The United Kingdom has passed the Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill, formally designating cryptocurrencies and stablecoins as a distinct category of personal property, establishing clear legal rights and protections for digital asset holders and paving the way for enhanced regulatory certainty and consumer confidence.
Key Information:
- The bill creates a new legal category for digital assets alongside traditional personal property types, ensuring crypto assets are recognized and protected under UK law.
- CryptoUK hailed the legislation for clarifying ownership rights, facilitating recovery of stolen assets, and enabling inclusion of digital holdings in insolvency and inheritance matters.
- Prior to this, UK courts treated crypto assets as property on a case-by-case basis without statutory backing, creating uncertainty for users and businesses.
- The law aligns with a global trend as other jurisdictions like Russia and India also move to formally recognize crypto as property in legal frameworks.
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🏃 Lightning Round
StablecoinsTron surpassed $80.2 billion in stablecoin market cap thanks to Tether minting 1 billion USDT on its network, highlighting Tron's role as a high-speed, low-fee hub for stablecoin transactions.
RegulationThe SEC issued warning letters to leveraged ETF issuers, halting proposals exceeding 200% leverage to protect investors after massive crypto liquidations raised concerns about risk in leveraged products.
TechnologyEthereum prepares for its Fusaka upgrade, doubling layer-1 throughput and improving validator efficiency with PeerDAS, cementing its position as the go-to on-chain finance settlement layer.
MarketsKalshi partnered with CNN to provide live prediction market data for political, economic, and cultural events, boosting Kalshi’s profile as a leading source of public sentiment insights amid its $11 billion valuation.
SecurityU.S. authorities seized a fraudulent crypto trading site run by a scam compound in Burma, part of a crackdown on Southeast Asian crypto fraud rings exploiting U.S. infrastructure.
InvestmentsFurther and 3iQ launched a $100 million market-neutral crypto hedge fund with a Bitcoin-denominated share class, catering to institutional investors seeking risk-managed exposure and compounding returns in BTC.
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📈 Numbers and Trends
- Crypto M&A hit a record $8.6 billion in 2025 with 133 deals closed, surpassing the total of the previous four years combined.
- Bitcoin settlement reached $6.9 trillion over 90 days, exceeding Visa and Mastercard combined, though adjusted economic volume is about $870 billion per quarter.
- Daily crypto liquidations nearly tripled with long position liquidations rising from $28 million to $68 million and shorts from $15 million to $45 million daily.
- Tether’s gold holdings rose by 26 metric tons in Q3 2025, totaling 116 tons, making it one of the top 30 gold holders globally.
- Ethereum treasury saw corporate Ether acquisitions drop 81% over three months to 370,000 ETH, while BitMine accumulated 679,000 ETH in the last month.
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💬 Quote of the Day
Banks criticize what they see as a loophole in the GENIUS Act, which prohibits stablecoin issuers from offering yield but permits third parties like Coinbase to do so. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, responded on social media, accusing bank lobbyists of creating regulatory barriers to protect their interests rather than consumers. He criticized efforts to undo laws and block charters as protectionism masquerading as consumer protection.
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1️⃣ Number of the Day
$8.6 billion - Record Crypto M&A Deal Volume in 2025
Crypto mergers and acquisitions reached an unprecedented $8.6 billion in 2025 through November, surpassing the combined total of the previous four years and signaling strong strategic growth and consolidation in the crypto industry despite market volatility.
Crypto M&A deals hit an all-time high in 2025, blowing past $8. 6B
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