Just now, when this line of golden numbers popped up—“2025 Crypto M&A Amount: $8.6 billion, a historical high”—I seemed to hear the loud sound of champagne corks popping at the Wall Street celebration.
What a prosperous, grand, and hopeful industry landscape it is!
But dear, please calm down for three seconds, and together with me, let's tear down this curtain embroidered with gold and see what is hidden behind it.
This is not a hymn to 'industry development.'
This is a final manifesto on monopoly patterns written by top capital in collaboration, aimed at each of us ordinary people.
Behind the data is the ultimate reshuffling of power.
The news states that the transaction volume is nearly four times that of 2024 (2.17 billion).
What does this mean?
This means that in 2024, the giants are still testing, hesitating, and making small moves. By 2025, under the banner of 'national priorities', they finally tear off all disguises and enter the ultimate form of harvesting mode: no longer seizing the market, but directly swallowing competitors.
Coinbase, $2.9 billion, acquires Deribit (one of the largest options trading platforms).
Kraken, $1.5 billion, acquires NinjaTrader (retail futures gateway).
Ripple, $1.25 billion, acquires Hidden Road (main broker).
Do you see it?
This is not a chaotic acquisition. This is a precise, vertical, ecological niche closed-loop operation.
Coinbase has filled the gap in derivatives, Kraken has strengthened futures reach, Ripple has improved institutional service capabilities.
Each of them is expanding from a narrow track of 'exchanges' into an all-encompassing financial giant.
When the giants complete horizontal mergers, what will be the next step?
It is pricing power, fee alliances, and absolute discourse power over listing rules.
Today, they divide the territory with $8.6 billion; tomorrow, they will join forces to extract higher 'tolls' from each of our transactions, each transfer, and each pledge.
The sugary coating of policy wraps the arsenic of capital.
The news attributes all this to 'the push from the Trump administration' and 'industry-friendly regulations'.
Translated, it means: 'The power to set the rules of the game has officially been transferred from Washington to the boards of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.'
The so-called 'regulatory clarity' has never been armor to protect retail investors.
It is a legally compliant predation license customized for capital predators.
In the past, they harvested you while being suspected of 'market manipulation' and 'fraud'.
Now, they only need to sign a multi-billion dollar acquisition agreement in a luxurious conference room to legitimately acquire your choice power, bargaining power, along with the little assets in your account, and then slowly extract them.
National cryptocurrency reserves?
That is an enormous irony. It is equivalent to the official announcement: 'We acknowledge the value of your crypto world, so now we and our close partners (these acquisition giants) will take care of and define these values for you.'
This is the ultimate nationalization expropriation, only instead of guns, it uses dollars.
Your future has already been written into the annex of the acquisition case.
267 transactions, up 18%.
Behind these cold numbers is the disappearance of 267 small and medium players that could have brought innovation, challenges, and different choices.
They are either being swallowed or suffocating under the giants' shadow.
From now on, you will no longer face a flourishing market.
But rather a series of highly homogenized, highly collaborative super terminals.
No matter whether you choose Coinbase, Kraken, or others, you are offering insignificant tributes to the same capital empire.
Through mergers and acquisitions, they have completed risk hedging and interest bundling.
And all risks will ultimately be transferred.
Transferred to whom?
Transferred to those who cannot participate in this game, who can only dance on the stage they built – you.
So, stop celebrating the 'historical high of $8.6 billion'.
This is not a victory for the industry at all.
This is a victory for capital concentration, marking the beginning of the end for retail choice.
When the monopoly is complete, the first to disappear is 'choice', the second is 'fairness', and the third is the very 'revolution' fantasy that once made us passionate.
