With an estimated worth of $100 billion, it’s arduous to consider that an organization like Coinbase wants to amass new companies to develop. However with $10 billion in money available, the US’s largest cryptocurrency trade continues to hunt out the following huge alternative within the sector.
Coinbase has not been shy about writing checks in 2025. The trade reportedly paid $2.9 billion in a cash-and-stock acquisition of cryptocurrency choices buying and selling platform Deribit in August.
Then got here its headline-grabbing $375 million acquisition of onchain capital elevating platform Echo in October. Crypto Twitter was buzzing over the information, due to some genius marketeering involving Echo’s founder and influencer Cobie, who acquired a further $25 million from Coinbase to relaunch his long-dormant UpOnly podcast.
The headlines inform a narrative of fortune-making handshakes between Coinbase and unicorn founders, however there’s vital intent, analysis and conviction behind these multimillion-dollar strikes.
So how does @Coinbase, a $100B firm with $10B of money available, determine what firms to put money into?
Coinbase has made 40+ acquisitions in recent times, most just lately forking out $375 to amass @echodotxyz.
Right here’s the key playbook for Coinbase’ merger and acquisition… pic.twitter.com/PwgOeJ5Uuf
— Gareth Jenkinson (@gazza_jenks) October 28, 2025
To unpack how Coinbase is investing billions in particular firms, Cointelegraph spoke to Aklil Ibbsa, Coinbase’s head of company improvement and M&A, on its each day “Chain Response” livestream show on X.
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Energy legislation distribution
Ibssa has been main world company improvement at Coinbase since 2019 and has been intimately concerned in the entire agency’s main acquisitions.
“In some ways, it’s a energy legislation distribution. In the event you’re fascinated about the way to proceed to develop Coinbase or develop any potential acquirer that you simply’re engaged on, you’re going to take quite a lot of pictures on aim. Not each single one goes to be an awesome shot on aim, however the winners actually begin to pay for the remainder of the portfolio,” Ibssa stated.
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Ibssa highlighted mergers and acquisitions as a major instance of this strategy. Describing their strikes like an “ESPN spotlight” reel, the corporate has loved some profitable and not-so-successful enterprise offers over the previous six years.
Ibssa stated {that a} handful stay high of thoughts, together with Coinbase’s reported $41 million deal for Tagomi, which turned the premise of Coinbase Prime.
“Coinbase Prime, in our institutional enterprise, now makes up a good portion of our income so I might toss that on the ESPN spotlight reel.”
Ibssa additionally highlighted the corporate’s 2019 deal to acquire Xapo’s institutional companies. He described the influence of that deal as “single-handedly making us the most important crypto custodian on the planet on the time.”
The exchange’s $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit is by far the most important in 2025, and Ibssa stated that post-close, the deal has proven “actually sturdy monetary efficiency.”
“Who doesn’t need to get acquired by Coinbase?”
“What does the desk appear like? Coinbase is an almost $100 billion firm with near $10 billion of money, so who doesn’t need to get acquired by Coinbase?” Ibssa stated.
He describes the job as “very fast-paced,” with a number of potential M&A offers stacked on his desk at any given time. Deciding on what offers to pursue has been based mostly on alternatives that might turn into extensions of Coinbase’s total product technique.
“Now we have a really clear technique and course for the enterprise and M&A is only a instrument for us to assist speed up getting there sooner.”
Coinbase’s total technique follows this mantra: Determine and again firms, services that speed up its aim of being an “all the things trade.”
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