PitchBook/JMP Securities report: crypto M&A deals have surged over 200% this year with 115 deals having been announced, on pace to hit 145 by year's end
Context & Ripple Effects
In late 2018, PitchBook and JMP Securities counted 115 crypto M&A deals announced year-to-date — a surge of more than 200% — putting the sector on pace for roughly 145 by December. At the time it read as consolidation accelerating through the post-ICO downturn.
The follow-through proved the surge was cyclical, not a new baseline: PwC's later tally showed deal counts falling from 189 in 2018 to 114 in 2019 and deal value collapsing from $1.89B to $451M. From that trough the market rebuilt — PwC measured 2020 value more than doubling to $1.1B — and the compounding continued into PitchBook's 2025 record of $8.6B across 267 deals alongside 11 IPOs raising $14.6B.
First-order effects
- Crypto startups hit by the 2018 downturn became acquisition targets rather than fundraising stories, with buyers using M&A to pick up teams, licenses, and infrastructure at post-boom prices.
- JMP Securities' projection of ~145 deals made 2018 the busiest crypto M&A year recorded to that point, giving bankers and founders a fresh benchmark for exit timing.
Second-order effects
- Sellers who missed the 2018 window faced a repriced market: PwC's subsequent data showed both deal count and value roughly halving into 2019, pushing marginal projects toward shutdown or fire-sale terms instead of exits.
- The bust validated a countercyclical playbook for strategic buyers — acquiring during drawdowns — that reappeared at scale in Q1 2025's record quarter, when Kraken paid $1.5B for NinjaTrader.
Third-order effects
- M&A hardened into crypto's default exit channel whenever public markets are closed, so each cycle concentrates the industry around fewer, better-capitalized operators — the throughline from 2018's 189-deal peak to 2025's 267 deals worth four times as much.
- If the pattern holds, deal volume becomes a lagging indicator of crypto market cycles, with consolidation waves peaking just after price peaks and clearing out weak infrastructure in the troughs.
The trend: Crypto M&A swings in ever-larger boom-bust waves around market cycles, with each consolidation phase leaving a more concentrated industry behind.