Written by: Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital
Translated by: Luffy, Foresight News
Summary
From the beginning of this year to now, cryptocurrency companies have raised over $16 billion, with more than 100 M&A transactions. The industry is moving toward a record-breaking direction, with total transaction volumes already surpassing the entire year of 2024.
Driven by increased transparency in U.S. regulations and global growth momentum, the foundation of this cycle is more robust.
The wave of strategic M&A and IPOs will continue into the next cycle.
In 2025, record-breaking mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and IPO activities are reshaping and driving the upgrade of the cryptocurrency industry, attracting new capital, institutions, developers, and users, injecting momentum for blockchain innovation and application landing. This model has appeared in other major technological transformations: after decades of infrastructure construction, explosive growth often follows. The rise of artificial intelligence benefited from decades of infrastructure investment, while the cryptocurrency industry is maturing at a much faster pace, relying on a more advanced tech stack that enables development compounding through better tools. For this reason, the inherent motivation of the current market is markedly different from previous cycles: it is no longer dominated by speculative trading, but rather driven by strategic integration.
Accelerated development momentum: Why this cycle is different
The cryptocurrency market's trends fluctuate in a sinusoidal pattern. Despite a slowdown in venture capital growth, factors such as favorable regulations, a government-friendly attitude toward cryptocurrency, active trading flows, increased investments in cryptocurrency businesses by companies like Robinhood, and deepening cross-sector integration with adjacent fields indicate that the industry's deep activities are actually showing a bullish trend.
After peaking in 2022, capital input fell sharply in 2023, began to recover in 2024, and is expected to accelerate significantly in 2025: in just Q2 2025, there were 31 transactions exceeding $50 million, with later-stage financing including IPOs, M&A, and debt financing becoming the main drivers of growth. From the beginning of this year to now, the capital attracted by the cryptocurrency market has reached $16.1 billion, but cryptocurrency venture capital is emulating the model of traditional venture capital: capital is concentrating on a few funds. Capital concentration often leads to increased individual investment amounts but fewer total transactions, reflecting the fact that many cryptocurrency companies are gradually moving into the growth phase, and indicating that the current financing environment is more competitive than ever for both founders and investors.
Multiple factors are at play, making this cycle unique: token price recovery, the continuous launch of new products, founders having greater confidence in the industry, and favorable regulations clarifying the development direction for stablecoins and digital assets—all of which unlock more capital for the industry. Over the past few years, regulatory ambiguity has created friction between innovators and the Web3 space, as all parties were concerned about potential penalty risks. The Trump administration's friendly attitude toward the cryptocurrency industry, through the (Genius Bill) and (Clarity Bill), has laid the legislative groundwork for on-chain applications. Although we cannot ascertain the long-term impact of these bills, it is certain that these discussions and initiatives will reduce hesitation regarding cryptocurrency investment at both cognitive and financial levels. Additionally, the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates in November, which is likely to drive more capital into risk assets, while the Digital Asset Trading System (DATS) will lock capital into long-tail assets. Investor risk aversion is gradually weakening, and enthusiasm for capital inflow is continuously increasing.
Investment allocation is shifting: one-third of capital is flowing into 'bottom-up' opportunities such as perpetual contracts, token issuance platforms, prediction markets, and new DeFi foundational protocols; the remaining two-thirds focus on 'top-down' sectors, including DATS, real-world asset tokenization (RWAs), exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and companies preparing for IPOs. In this cycle, public market assets dominate, making it easier for a broader public to access cryptocurrency assets. This is a very healthy signal for the industry. This balanced situation indicates that the market is gradually maturing, valuing both innovation and integration with traditional finance.
The window for formulating a legislative blueprint for cryptocurrency is very short, and the current government's supportive attitude toward the cryptocurrency industry means this window will last until the mid-2026 elections. The DeFi Education Fund is dedicated to protecting software developers: it has not only submitted feedback to the Senate Banking Committee (request for information on digital asset market structure) but has also recently released a discussion draft for the (2025 Responsible Financial Innovation Act). The 2025 Wyoming Blockchain Symposium focused on digital asset regulation, emphasizing the urgency of establishing a clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrency in the U.S. and the necessity of building a balanced market structure. Current government officials attended the symposium, which included agenda items to promote forward-looking regulation. Looking ahead to Q1 2026, we expect the regulatory foundation to be stronger than in any previous cycle, especially in the context of time constraints.
Token listings and the IPO market are rebooting
In 2025, the number of token listings has decreased, and fewer new tokens maintain their gains, dragging down downstream trading flows. Projects relying on token issuance will find it increasingly difficult to raise funds if they lack market appeal.
In contrast, the IPO window has reopened. In 2025, 95 companies have gone public on U.S. exchanges, with the total raised amount reaching $15.6 billion by mid-June, a 30% increase over 2024. IPOs of crypto-related companies like Circle and BitGo are leading the trend, creating a new trend where investors are beginning to allocate funds to cryptocurrency stocks instead of tokens. On June 5, 2025, Circle's listing became a key milestone: its issuance price was $31 per share, which rose to $233 by mid-July, yielding a return of over 5 times, with a market capitalization of $44.98 billion. Recently, Figure and Bullish also completed their IPOs, with Bullish becoming the first company to raise $1.15 billion partially through stablecoins. BitGo plans to advance its IPO and has already raised $100 million during the 2023 bear market, highlighting investor interest. Now, cryptocurrency companies are focusing more on optimizing revenue and growth rather than pursuing speculative token issuance.
The wave of crypto IPOs and other 'top-down' sectors is attracting traditional investors through robust, revenue-oriented business models (rather than volatile cryptocurrencies). The IPO wave has just begun, and more companies will join in the coming months.
M&A activities and industry maturation
2024 is a record year for M&A, 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 this year alone, 76 transactions have been completed, totaling $6.23 billion, which is 3.6 times the total transaction volume for the entire year of 2024. At the current pace, M&A transactions in 2025 are expected to reach 130.
The momentum of M&A in 2025 reflects signals of natural maturation in the industry rather than releasing pent-up demand. For example, strategic acquisitions like Robinhood's purchase of Bitstamp indicate that mature companies are striving to build integrated platforms. Robinhood's bet of billions of dollars on the future of cryptocurrency adds more credibility to the ecosystem. In Q2 2025, Robinhood's cryptocurrency business revenue surged 98% year-on-year to $160 million; total company revenue grew 45% to $989 million, with profits reaching $386 million. As a stock trading platform centered on retail users, Robinhood's acceptance of blockchain infrastructure highlights the trend of the industry transforming toward mainstream and compliant infrastructures.
Similarly, later-stage financing transactions also reflect a focus on 'revenue-oriented, compliant models.' For example, in Q2 2025, Securitize raised $400 million from Mantle for RWA tokenization; the prediction market platform Kalshi raised $185 million, valuing it at $2 billion. These initiatives indicate that the focus of the cryptocurrency industry has shifted toward collaborating with traditional financial institutions rather than merely chasing speculative opportunities.
The cross-integration of the cryptocurrency industry with other sectors
The cryptocurrency industry is no longer in isolation; it is deeply integrating with cutting-edge technologies and the global financial system.
In the field of artificial intelligence, OpenMind's OM1 + FABRIC technology stack fills the 'missing layer' in the robotics industry, enabling collaborative work among different robots in a decentralized way; Worldcoin's iris scanning identity verification system relies on a blockchain identity layer, promising that AI agents can achieve autonomous authentication and transactions, solving key security interaction issues for AI agents in the cryptocurrency space; decentralized AI platforms like Sahara AI (the decentralized version of Scale AI) and Sentient (the decentralized version of Hugging Face) are disrupting traditional AI infrastructure. Currently, the application layer of cryptocurrency AI is still in its infancy, but its potential may give rise to a new market structure through on-chain agents and transaction systems.
In the payment sector, stablecoins (especially Circle's USDC) have become an important part of the global payment system, and the (Genius Bill) has further accelerated the application of USDC. In Q1 2025, Circle's revenue grew 58.6% to $579 million. Analysts predict that the daily trading volume of stablecoins could reach $250 billion within the next three years; if the growth momentum continues, it may even surpass traditional payment systems like Visa within the next decade. Companies like PayPal and Visa are exploring the integration of stablecoins into mainstream payment channels. Robinhood's collaboration with Arbitrum allows Robinhood users to trade USDC directly on Arbitrum, lowering the barrier for retail users to use stablecoins. This collaboration is just the beginning, as Arbitrum plays a key role in expanding stablecoin applications, confirming the value of Layer 2 solutions in connecting cryptocurrencies with traditional finance.
The cross-integration of these key industries brings together experts from artificial intelligence, fintech, and consumer technology, blurring industry boundaries. As the infrastructure of decentralized systems, the cryptocurrency industry is gradually becoming a key layer in the global tech stack.
Looking ahead
We expect that from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026, the market cycle will be structurally stronger. Unprecedented regulatory clarity, anticipated interest rate cuts, and significant capital inflows brought by strategic M&A and IPOs are collectively building a solid foundation for the industry. The current new momentum centered on 'real application value' lays the groundwork for accelerated growth in the industry. Our strategy is to seize this opportunity, concentrating resources on high-certainty investments in Series A companies that are expected to define their respective fields.
From the beginning of 2025 to now, the U.S. IPO market has welcomed 224 IPOs. In the first half of 2024, there were 94 IPOs, while in the first half of 2025, there were 165 IPOs, an increase of 76%. In just the first half of 2025, there have been 185 crypto-related M&A transactions, expected to exceed the entire year of 2024's level of 248. The successful IPOs of well-known companies like Circle and the acquisitions of crypto companies by traditional financial giants demonstrate the strength of the upcoming cycle.
The cross-integration of cryptocurrency with artificial intelligence, payments, and infrastructure, combined with favorable regulations and strong investor interest, will drive the industry into an accelerated growth era. Seizing this opportunity, we will continue to solidify the position of the cryptocurrency industry as a pillar of global finance and technology.
