Original / Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
As 2025 comes to a close, Coinbase is making moves again, this time targeting the hot prediction market sector.
Last night, Coinbase announced its acquisition of the prediction market startup The Clearing Company. The company was founded by former employees of Kalshi and Polymarket and had previously secured $15 million in seed funding with participation from Coinbase. This acquisition is seen as a key step in Coinbase's vision of building an "Everything Exchange."
As an important crypto concept stock in the U.S. market, Coinbase's series of acquisitions in 2025 is gradually revealing its deeper on-chain layout. Odaily Planet Daily will outline its annual acquisition projects in this article, attempting to gain insight into Coinbase's future strategic direction.
Coinbase's Top 10 Acquisitions of 2025: From On-Chain Products to Financial Platforms
Roam: On-Chain Browser and Search Engine
In January this year, the on-chain browser and search engine Roam officially announced its acquisition by Coinbase. The project's co-founders Xen Baynham-Herd (CEO), Ali Fathalian (CTO), and John Granata (CFO) have all joined Coinbase to accelerate the development of on-chain consumers.
Subsequently, the project's CEO @XenBH became the current Global Growth Head of Base, while the project itself has faded into obscurity.
Project official account: https://x.com/roam_xyz
Spindl: On-Chain Advertising Platform
At the end of January this year, Coinbase announced its acquisition of the on-chain advertising platform Spindl, aiming to rebuild the on-chain advertising technology stack, though the specific acquisition amount was not disclosed. The platform was founded by former Facebook advertising team member Antonio Garcia-Martinez and focuses on solving the on-chain distribution problems faced by builders. Its technology allows Coinbase to help developers disseminate on-chain and find distribution channels within Coinbase and the broader on-chain economy.
Previously, the platform completed a $7 million funding round in 2022, led by DragonFly Capital and Chapter 1, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Tribe Capital, Multicoin, Solana Ventures, and others. At that time, founder García Martínez stated that the company aimed to rebuild the infrastructure of Web2 e-commerce backends for Web3, specifically how internet businesses track where their customers come from and develop customer acquisition strategies to attract more users. For example, Spindl can analyze Discord posts, Reddit forums, advertisements, and other internet links, pairing this data with on-chain behaviors such as purchases, sales, and trades to create profiles that help protocols understand traffic sources.
Clearly, similar to Alibaba's acquisition of internet platforms in the Web2 space, the ultimate fate of the project remains similar: the team is absorbed into Coinbase or Base's organizational structure, and the project gradually fades away until it quietly ceases operations.
Project official account: https://x.com/spindl_xyz
Iron Fish: Universal Privacy Layer for Crypto Assets
In March this year, Coinbase's L2 network Base acquired the development team of the privacy blockchain Iron Fish in a team acquisition format, specifically emphasizing that "this acquisition is limited to the team; Base will not acquire the Iron Fish blockchain or its native token."
This move is reminiscent of Circle's previous acquisition of the development team behind Axelar, without intending to "take over" Axelar Network, Axelar Foundation, and the AXL token. In the eyes of giants, the developers of crypto projects are seen as intangible organizational assets, while tokens and the crypto projects themselves are more like a form of "debt." Recommended reading: “Circle's Acquisition of Axelar Sparks Controversy: Giants Only Want People, Not Tokens”.
Project official account: https://x.com/ironfishcrypto
Deribit: The World's Largest Crypto Derivatives Platform
In May this year, Coinbase spent $2.9 billion (including $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock) to acquire the crypto options platform Deribit, aiming to integrate spot, futures, and options trading, deeply coordinating the trading capabilities of its platforms. At that time, Coinbase was particularly interested in Deribit's $30 billion in open contracts and $1 trillion in trading volume.
Subsequently, Coinbase's Q1 2025 financial report showed a 12% quarter-over-quarter decline in revenue to $2.03 billion, below market expectations, with trading revenue down nearly 19% year-over-year to $1.3 billion. However, several analysts from institutions like Bernstein and Canaccord gave positive evaluations of "Coinbase's acquisition of Deribit," believing that this move would enhance Coinbase's strategic position in the derivatives field and support its global expansion.
Project official account: https://x.com/DeribitOfficial
Liquifi: Token Management Company
In July this year, Coinbase officially acquired the token management company Liquifi, marking Coinbase's fifth acquisition this year; additionally, Coinbase's head of corporate development Aklil Ibssa declined to disclose specific transaction terms and amounts.
It is reported that Liquifi's last funding round was in 2022, raising $5 million in a seed round led by venture capital firm Dragonfly, with participation from crypto industry leaders like Katie Haun and Balaji Srinivasan. Well-known cryptocurrency companies such as Uniswap Foundation, OP Labs, Ethena, and Zora use the platform to track cryptocurrency holdings, distribute tokens after the vesting period, and manage complex tax withholding processes.
Since then, the project's external updates have also been limited to the tweet announcing the acquisition.
Project official account: https://x.com/liquifi_finance
Opyn: DeFi Options Protocol
Also in July, Coinbase completed its sixth acquisition this year in the form of an acqui-hire, bringing in two core members of the DeFi options protocol Opyn: CEO Andrew Leone and research head Joe Clark. The two subsequently joined Coinbase's on-chain market team, participating in the development of the Verified pool and other on-chain products.
Coinbase previously stated that the Opyn team launched the first DeFi options protocol and developed the Power Perpetuals and Squeeth products. Notably, Opyn was sued by the CFTC in 2023 for allegedly operating an unregistered trading platform and ultimately reached a settlement with a $250,000 fine, leading co-founders Zubin Koticha and Alexis Gauba to resign at that time.
It is reported that in two funding rounds, Opyn raised at least $10.9 million, including a seed round of $2.16 million led by Dragonfly Capital and a $6.7 million Series A round in 2021 led by Paradigm, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, and others.
Project official account: https://x.com/opyn_
Sensible: Crypto Yield Platform
In September this year, Coinbase officially acquired the founders of the crypto yield platform Sensible, Jacob Frantz and Zachary Salmon, who naturally joined Coinbase, while a few other employees are unaccounted for.
Ultimately, the project ceased operations in October, with the last tweet from the project's official account being a "welcome message" from Coinbase's head of corporate development, Aklil Ibssa.
Project official account: https://x.com/holdsensible
Echo: Launchpad Platform
In October this year, Coinbase acquired the crypto KOL Cobie's Launchpad platform Echo for $375 million, marking Cobie's second income from Coinbase—his first being the podcast UpOnly NFT, which Coinbase acquired for $25 million. This means that although this ticket does not grant any sponsorship rights, we as spectators can still look forward to the official release of future episodes.
Additionally, Cobie stated that ECHO will temporarily continue to operate as an independent platform, but its public offering product sonar will be integrated into Coinbase.
Project official account: https://x.com/echodotxyz
Vector.fun: Solana Ecosystem Trading Platform
In November this year, Coinbase's Vice President of Product Management Max Branzburg revealed the acquisition of the Solana trading platform Vector.fun, with the deal expected to be completed by the end of the year, though the acquisition terms and specific amount were not disclosed.
After the acquisition, existing applications of Vector.fun will be shut down, and its technology will be used to enhance the decentralized trading capabilities of the Coinbase app, allowing users to trade Solana ecosystem assets directly through Coinbase, breaking the current limitation of only supporting trading on the Base chain.
Regarding this acquisition, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated, "Earlier this year, I mentioned that we would elevate our Solana game. Since then, we have introduced AgentKit and x402 to Solana and upgraded the infrastructure to expand services (block processing throughput increased by 5 times, RPC performance improved by 4 times). Now, we will bring in SOL-native technology and talent to integrate into our platform, enhancing Coinbase's support for Solana trading. This is how we build Everything Exchange."
It is also worth mentioning that this acquisition faced criticism from market participants due to insider trading, as the Vector.fun project token TNSR surged 8 times within two days before plummeting 40%. Moonrock Capital founder Simon Dedic harshly criticized Coinbase for alleged insider trading; additionally, the developers of Vector.fun, Tensor, and its token remain independent of this acquisition, leading to the inference that Tensor will cash out a large undisclosed amount while TNSR holders will "gain nothing," further highlighting the misalignment between equity and tokens.
Project official account: https://x.com/VECTORDOTFUN
The Clearing Company: Prediction Market Startup
The most recent acquisition occurred yesterday.
Coinbase officially provided a detailed announcement regarding the acquisition of the prediction market platform The Clearing Company, mentioning:
- The Clearing Company team is led by founder and CEO Toni Gemayel (note from Odaily Planet Daily: he previously served as the growth lead at Polymarket and Kalshi, with some employees coming from Polymarket), who will help expand the trading scale of world-class prediction markets on Coinbase, accelerating our exciting goal as part of Everything Exchange;
- The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed in January.
Notably, Coinbase previously launched a prediction market service supported by Kalshi and claimed it would introduce more prediction market platform contracts, which has now come to fruition. Additionally, The Clearing Company completed a $15 million seed round in August this year, led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Haun Ventures, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Compound, and others.
With this, Coinbase has filled the last hot puzzle piece in the cryptocurrency industry—prediction markets.
Project official account: https://x.com/theclearingco
Conclusion: Coinbase's Ambition: Exchange Everything
Looking at Coinbase's top 10 acquisitions this year, most of the acquisitions did not disclose specific amounts, and many of the projects were talent acquisitions—aside from Deribit, Vector.fun, and The Clearing Company, which either already have a high industry status and rich liquidity and trading volume; or serve as bridging components for ecosystem network expansion; or are in hot sectors with promising futures.
Coinbase's ultimate goal has long been articulated by CEO Brian Armstrong and Base head Jesse Pollak, often referring to the "Everything Exchange." Its ultimate purpose is to look back and see—Exchange Everything, creating a "one-stop trading platform" that meets users' diverse trading needs regarding on-chain tokens, on-chain consumption, on-chain finance, spot, options, futures, and even betting on prediction market events, truly turning "Coinbase as a Service" (CAAS) into a solid moat for business models like stablecoin custody.
In the competition with leading CEXs like Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Upbit, if most exchanges have chosen a "single-point breakthrough" route, Coinbase has opted for a more challenging development path with a higher ceiling—"systematic coordination."
However, its transcendent status as the "first stock in cryptocurrency" and its ongoing positive momentum may propel it to become a representative investment target in the crypto industry. It is no wonder that Cathie Wood's Ark Invest has positioned it as "the most crypto holdings."
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