With an estimated value of $100 billion, it’s hard to believe that a company like Coinbase needs to acquire new businesses to grow. But with $10 billion in cash on hand, the US’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange continues to seek out the next big opportunity in the sector.
Coinbase has not been shy about writing checks in 2025. The exchange reportedly paid $2.9 billion in a cash-and-stock acquisition of cryptocurrency options trading platform Deribit in August.
Then came its headline-grabbing $375 million acquisition of onchain capital raising platform Echo in October. Crypto Twitter was buzzing over the news, thanks to some genius marketeering involving Echo’s founder and influencer Cobie, who received $25 million from Coinbase as part of the deal to relaunch his long-dormant UpOnly podcast.
The headlines tell a story of fortune-making handshakes between Coinbase and unicorn founders, but there is significant intent, research and conviction behind these multimillion-dollar moves.
To unpack how Coinbase is investing billions in specific companies, Cointelegraph spoke to Aklil Ibbsa, Coinbase’s head of corporate development and M&A, on its daily “Chain Reaction” livestream show on X.
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Power law distribution
Ibssa has been leading global corporate development at Coinbase since 2019 and has been intimately involved in all of the firm’s major acquisitions.
“In many ways, it is a power law distribution. If you’re thinking about how to continue to grow Coinbase or grow any potential acquirer that you’re working on, you’re going to take a lot of shots on goal. Not every single one is going to be a great shot on goal, but the winners really start to pay for the rest of the portfolio,” Ibssa said.
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Ibssa highlighted mergers and acquisitions as a prime example of this approach. Describing their moves like an “ESPN highlight” reel, the company has enjoyed some successful and not-so-successful business deals over the past six years.
Ibssa said that a handful remain top of mind, including Coinbase’s reported $41 million deal for Tagomi, which became the basis of Coinbase Prime.
Ibssa also highlighted the company’s 2019 deal to acquire Xapo’s institutional businesses. He described the impact of that deal as “single-handedly making us the largest crypto custodian on the planet at the time.”
The exchange’s $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit is by far the largest in 2025, and Ibssa said that post-close, the deal has shown “really strong financial performance.”
“Who doesn’t want to get acquired by Coinbase?”
“What does the desk look like? Coinbase is a nearly $100 billion company with close to $10 billion of cash, so who doesn’t want to get acquired by Coinbase?” Ibssa said.
He describes the job as “very fast-paced,” with multiple potential M&A deals stacked on his desk at any given time. Deciding on what deals to pursue has been based on opportunities that could become extensions of Coinbase’s overall product strategy.
Coinbase’s overall strategy follows this mantra: Identify and back companies, products and services that accelerate its goal of being an “everything exchange.”
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Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-secret-behind-coinbase-s-billion-dollar-m-a-strategy?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=feed%3Frand%3Dx5g5e_1761733267028%26cb%3D92uh4w%26cachebust%3Dtrue%26_%3D1761733267028&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound
