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So far this year, cryptocurrency companies have raised over $16 billion in funding and over 100 mergers and acquisitions. The industry is on track to set a new record, with total deal volume already exceeding the full-year level of 2024.
This cycle is on a stronger footing, driven by greater regulatory transparency in the US and global growth momentum.
The wave of strategic mergers and acquisitions and IPOs will continue into the next cycle.
In 2025, record-breaking M&A and IPO activity is reshaping and driving the crypto industry's upgrade, attracting new capital, institutions, developers, and users, fueling blockchain innovation and application adoption. This pattern has been seen in other major technological shifts: decades of infrastructure development are often followed by explosive growth. The rise of artificial intelligence benefited from decades of infrastructure investment, but the crypto industry is maturing much faster, relying on a more advanced technology stack and leveraging superior tools to compound its growth. As such, the current market's underlying dynamics are distinct from previous cycles: no longer driven by speculation, but rather driven by strategic integration.
Accelerating Momentum: Why This Cycle Is Different
The crypto market has experienced a sine-curve-like fluctuation. Despite a slowdown in venture capital investment, underlying activity in the sector is bullish, driven by favorable regulations, crypto-friendly government policies, robust deal flow, increased investment in crypto by companies like Robinhood, and the deepening cross-integration of crypto with adjacent sectors.
After peaking in 2022, capital investment declined sharply in 2023, began to recover in 2024, and saw a significant acceleration in 2025: in the second quarter of 2025 alone, 31 transactions exceeded $50 million, with late-stage financing such as IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and debt financing driving the growth. Year-to-date, the crypto market has attracted $16.1 billion in capital, but crypto venture capital is following the traditional venture capital model: capital is concentrated in a small number of funds. This concentration of capital typically results in an increase in individual investment amounts but a decrease in the total number of deals. This reflects both the fact that many crypto companies are gradually entering their growth phase and that the current fundraising environment is more competitive than ever for both founders and investors.
Multiple factors have conspired to make this cycle unique: a rebound in token prices, the continuous launch of new products, increased confidence among founders in the industry, and favorable regulations that have clarified the development direction of stablecoins and digital assets, all of which have unlocked more capital for the industry. For years, regulatory ambiguity has caused friction between innovators and the Web3 community, driven by concerns about potential penalties. The Trump administration, however, has adopted a friendly stance towards the crypto industry, passing the Genius Act and the Clarity Act, laying the legislative foundation for the implementation of on-chain applications. While the impact of these bills cannot be determined in the distant future, it is certain that these discussions and initiatives will reduce hesitation about crypto investments, both in terms of knowledge and financial resources. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve's expected November rate cut is expected to drive more capital into risky assets, while Digital Asset Trading Systems (DATS) will also lock capital in long-tail assets. Investor risk aversion is gradually waning, and capital inflows are becoming increasingly positive.
Investment allocation has shifted: one-third of capital is flowing into "bottom-up" opportunities such as perpetual swaps, token issuance platforms, prediction markets, and new DeFi infrastructure protocols; the remaining two-thirds is focused on "top-down" areas, including DATS, real-world asset tokenization (RWAs), exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and companies preparing for IPOs. Public market assets have dominated this cycle, making crypto assets more accessible to the broader public. This is a very healthy sign for the industry. This balanced situation indicates that the market is maturing, emphasizing both innovation and integration with traditional finance.
The window for developing a crypto legislative blueprint is very short, and the current administration is supportive of the crypto industry, which will last until the 2026 midterm elections. The DeFi Education Fund is working to protect software developers: it not only submitted feedback on the Senate Banking Committee's "Digital Asset Market Structure Information Request", but also recently released a discussion draft of the "Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025". Last week, the 2025 Wyoming Blockchain Symposium focused on digital asset regulation, emphasizing the urgency of establishing a clear crypto regulatory framework in the United States and the need to build a balanced market structure. The symposium was attended by current government officials, and the agenda included promoting forward-looking regulation. Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2026, we expect the regulatory foundation to be stronger than in previous cycles, especially in this time-sensitive context.
Token listing and IPO market restart
In 2025, the number of token listings declined, and fewer of these new tokens were able to maintain their gains, dragging down downstream transaction flows. Projects relying on token issuance will find it more difficult to secure funding if they lack market traction.
In contrast, the IPO window has reopened. In 2025, 95 companies had already listed on US exchanges, raising $15.6 billion as of mid-June, a 30% increase from 2024. IPOs by crypto-related companies like Circle and BitGo have led the charge, spurring a new trend in which investors are allocating funds to crypto stocks rather than tokens. Circle's IPO on June 5, 2025, marked a pivotal moment: its IPO price was $31 per share, rising to $233 by mid-July, a return exceeding fivefold and a market capitalization of $44.98 billion. Figure and Bullish also recently completed IPOs, with Bullish becoming the first company to raise $1.15 billion in part through stablecoins. BitGo's plans for an IPO, having already raised $100 million during the 2023 bear market, underscore investor interest. Crypto companies are now prioritizing revenue and growth over speculative token issuance.
The surge in crypto IPOs and other "top-down" offerings is attracting traditional investors with robust, revenue-driven business models, rather than the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies. The IPO wave is just beginning, with more companies expected to join in the coming months.
M&A activity and industry maturity
2024 was a record year for mergers and acquisitions, with over 100 transactions totaling $1.73 billion. The number of transactions in 2025 is expected to surpass that of 2024. From January to July of this year alone, 76 transactions totaling $6.23 billion were completed, 3.6 times the total transaction volume for the entire year of 2024. At the current pace, 2025 is expected to see 130 M&A transactions.
The M&A momentum in 2025 is more a sign of the industry's natural maturation than the release of pent-up demand. Strategic acquisitions, such as Robinhood's acquisition of Bitstamp, demonstrate that established companies are focusing on building integrated platforms. Robinhood's multi-billion dollar bet on the future of crypto lends further credibility to the ecosystem. In the second quarter of 2025, Robinhood's crypto revenue surged 98% year-over-year to $160 million; total company revenue increased 45% to $989 million, with profits reaching $386 million. As a retail-focused stock trading platform, Robinhood's embrace of blockchain infrastructure highlights the industry's transition to mainstream, regulated infrastructure.
Similarly, later-stage funding rounds also demonstrate a focus on revenue-driven, compliant models. For example, in Q2 2025, Securitize raised $400 million from Mantle for RWA tokenization, while prediction market platform Kalshi secured $185 million at a $2 billion valuation. These initiatives demonstrate a shift in the crypto industry's focus toward partnerships with traditional financial institutions, rather than simply pursuing speculative opportunities.
Cross-integration of the crypto industry with other fields
The crypto industry is no longer isolated, but is deeply integrated with today's cutting-edge technologies and the global financial system.
In the field of artificial intelligence, OpenMind's OM1 + FABRIC technology stack fills a "missing layer" in the robotics industry, enabling collaborative collaboration among different robots through a decentralized approach. Worldcoin's iris scanning authentication system, leveraging a blockchain identity layer, promises to enable autonomous authentication and transactions among AI agents, addressing the critical challenge of secure interaction between AI agents in the crypto space. Decentralized AI platforms such as Sahara AI (a decentralized version of Scale AI) and Sentient (a decentralized version of Hugging Face) are disrupting traditional AI infrastructure. While the application layer of crypto AI is still in its infancy, its potential holds the potential to catalyze entirely new market structures through on-chain agent and transaction systems.
In the payments sector, stablecoins (particularly Circle's USDC) have become a vital component of the global payment system, and the Genius Act has further accelerated USDC's adoption. In the first quarter of 2025, Circle's revenue grew 58.6% to $579 million. Analysts predict that stablecoin daily trading volume is expected to reach $250 billion within the next three years; if growth continues, it could even surpass traditional payment systems like Visa within the next decade. Companies like PayPal and Visa are exploring the integration of stablecoins and integrating them into mainstream payment channels. Robinhood's partnership with Arbitrum allows Robinhood users to trade USDC directly on Arbitrum, lowering the barrier to entry for retail users. This collaboration is just the beginning; Arbitrum plays a key role in expanding stablecoin adoption and demonstrates the value of Layer 2 solutions in bridging cryptocurrencies and traditional finance.
The intersection of these key industries has brought together experts from artificial intelligence, financial technology, and consumer technology, blurring industry boundaries. As the infrastructure for decentralized systems, the crypto industry is gradually becoming a key layer in the global technology stack.
Looking to the future
We anticipate a structurally stronger market cycle between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. Unprecedented regulatory clarity, anticipated interest rate cuts, and significant capital inflows from strategic M&A and IPOs are building a solid industry foundation. This new momentum, centered on "real-world application value," lays the foundation for accelerated industry growth. Our strategy is to seize this opportunity and focus our resources on high-certainty investments in Series A companies poised to define their respective sectors.
Since the beginning of 2025, the US IPO market has seen 224 IPOs. The number of IPOs in the first half of 2024 was 94, while in the first half of 2025, there were 165, a 76% increase. In the first half of 2025 alone, there were 185 crypto-related mergers and acquisitions, which is expected to exceed the 248 transactions for the entire year of 2024. The successful IPOs of well-known companies such as Circle, as well as acquisitions of crypto companies by traditional financial giants, highlight the strength of the upcoming cycle.
The intersection of crypto with AI, payments, and infrastructure, coupled with favorable regulations and strong investor interest, will propel the industry into an era of accelerated growth. We will leverage this opportunity to further solidify the crypto industry's position as a pillar of global finance and technology.
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