Crypto M&A picks up in May
Crypto M&A is on the rise, with a handful of acquisitions announced just last week
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You know what’s better than big, splashy M&A deals?
A bunch of smaller ones that show the appetite isn’t just isolated to the top.
Take, for example, three M&A deals announced last week: Alchemy acquiring DexterLab, 0x buying up Flood, and Gnosis buying HQ.xyz.
That means that, so far in May, we’ve already seen a handful of acquisitions. Just last week, we had announcements from Robinhood, Alchemy, 0x, Anchorage and Gnosis.
We certainly fared better last year than we did the year prior, but we’re already on track to surpass 2021 levels, thanks to the mega-deals we’ve seen from the likes of Coinbase and Kraken.
The majority of deals tend to fall in the “Finance” category, per Blockworks Research, which isn’t necessarily a surprise given that companies are looking to add to their toolboxes as crypto sees wider adoption and activity picks up.
Both Robinhood and Anchorage’s respective deals last week gave some insight into how the firms are looking to develop their offerings: Robinhood gained a Canadian foothold, while Anchorage widened its stablecoin exposure (although it won’t continue Mountain’s yield-bearing stablecoin USDM).
The Gnosis acquisition looks like a further foray into stablecoin payments, a la Anchorage. HQ.xyz, now Gnosis HQ, gives Gnosis the ability to offer stablecoin offramps, treasury oversight controls and accounting tool integrations.
“If Gnosis Pay represents our commitment to empowering everyday consumers with self-custodial financial tools, Gnosis HQ completes that vision on the enterprise side: offering crypto-native teams and traditional businesses alike the tools they need to operate with autonomy, compliance, and clarity,” the team said.
Meanwhile, 0x is taking another step to stay competitive in the DEX aggregation space by acquiring Flood. This acquisition was of particular interest to me because it involves a firm buying up a competitor, and it speaks further to some activity I think we’ll see down the line as crypto really heats up.
The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but 0x said it’s “consolidating our leadership in aggregation infrastructure, bringing together elite technical talent and pioneering routing architecture to accelerate the evolution of decentralized trading.”
But Alchemy’s acquisition of DexterLab is a bit of a different story. At first glance, my read is that Alchemy is acknowledging that firms want to build on Solana, and this acquisition gives them exposure to that play.
Per CoinDesk’s report, the team said DexterLab will help the development of Web3 applications on Solana, which will help organizational demand.
At this point, I might have to rethink calling it “M&A season” and instead call it crypto’s M&A year… But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.
Either way, these deals show that firms have the appetite to grow or consolidate their offerings, which is a very healthy sign for crypto.
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