Original / Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author / Wenser(@wenser2010)
As 2025 draws to a close, Coinbase has made another move, this time targeting the red-hot prediction market sector.
Last night, Coinbase announced its acquisition of the prediction market startup The Clearing Company. Founded by former employees of Kalshi and Polymarket, the company had previously secured a $15 million seed round with participation from Coinbase. This acquisition is seen as a crucial step in Coinbase's vision to build an "Everything Exchange."
As a key crypto-related stock in the U.S. market, Coinbase's series of acquisitions in 2025 are gradually revealing its deeper on-chain strategy. Odaily Planet Daily will梳理 (sort out) its annual acquisition projects in this article, attempting to透视 (see through) Coinbase's future strategic direction.
Coinbase's 2025 'Top 10 Acquisitions': From On-Chain Products to Financial Platforms
Roam: On-Chain Browser and Search Engine
In January of this year, the on-chain browser and search engine Roam officially announced via a post that it had been acquired by Coinbase. Project co-founders Xen Baynham-Herd (CEO), Ali Fathalian (CTO), and John Granata (CFO) have all joined Coinbase to help accelerate the development of the company's on-chain consumer products.
Subsequently, the project's CEO @XenBH became the current Global Growth Lead for 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, according to an official announcement, Coinbase announced the acquisition of the on-chain advertising platform Spindl, aiming to rebuild the on-chain advertising technology stack. 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 can allow Coinbase to help developers spread on-chain and find distribution channels within Coinbase and across the entire on-chain economy.
The platform had previously raised $7 million in a 2022 funding round led by DragonFly Capital and Chapter 1, with participation from Polygon Ventures, Tribe Capital, Multicoin, Solana Ventures, and others. At the time, founder García Martínez stated that the company was trying to rebuild the infrastructure of the Web2 e-commerce backend for Web3—i.e., how internet businesses track where their customers come from and develop customer acquisition strategies to attract more users. For example, Spindl could analyze Discord posts, Reddit forums, ads, and other internet links, pair this data with on-chain behaviors like purchases, sales, and trades to create profiles that help protocols understand traffic sources.
Clearly, similar to Web2 internet giant Alibaba acquiring internet platforms, the project's fate was similar: the team was absorbed into the Coinbase or Base organization, and the project gradually faded away until it quietly shut down.
Project official account: https://x.com/spindl_xyz
Iron Fish: Universal Privacy Layer for Crypto Assets
In March of this year, Base, Coinbase's L2 network, acquired the development team behind the privacy blockchain Iron Fish in the form of a team acquisition, 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 strikingly similar to Circle's previous acquisition of Interop Labs, the development team behind Axelar, while having no intention of "taking on" the Axelar Network, Axelar Foundation, or AXL token. In the eyes of giants, the developers of crypto projects are intangible organizational assets, while the 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 the People, Not the Coin》.
Project official account: https://x.com/ironfishcrypto
Deribit: World's Largest Crypto Derivatives Platform
In May of this year, Coinbase splurged $2.9 billion ($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, and deeply coordinate the trading capabilities of its platforms. At the time, Coinbase was primarily interested in Deribit's high open interest of $30 billion and trading volume in the trillions of dollars.
Subsequently, Coinbase's Q1 2025 earnings report showed its revenue fell 12% quarter-on-quarter to $2.03 billion, missing market expectations, with trading revenue falling nearly 19% year-on-year to $1.3 billion. However, analysts from institutions like Bernstein and Canaccord纷纷 (repeatedly) gave positive evaluations of "Coinbase's acquisition of Deribit," believing it would enhance Coinbase's strategic position in the derivatives field and aid its global layout.
Project official account: https://x.com/DeribitOfficial
Liquifi: Token Management Company
In July of this year, Coinbase formally acquired the token management company Liquifi, marking Coinbase's fifth acquisition of the year; additionally, Coinbase Head of Corporate Development Aklil Ibssa declined to disclose specific transaction terms and amounts.
It is reported that Liquifi's last funding round was a $5 million seed round in 2022, led by venture capital firm Dragonfly, with participation from crypto heavyweights like Katie Haun and Balaji Srinivasan. Prominent cryptocurrency companies like the Uniswap Foundation, OP Labs, Ethena, and Zora used the platform to track cryptocurrency holdings, distribute tokens after vesting periods, and manage complex tax withholding processes.
Since then, the project's external updates have stopped at the tweet about the acquisition.
Project official account: https://x.com/liquifi_finance
Opyn: DeFi Options Protocol
Also in July, Coinbase completed its sixth acquisition of the year, in the form of a talent acquisition (acqui-hire), bringing in two core members of the DeFi options protocol Opyn: CEO Andrew Leone and Head of Research Joe Clark. The two subsequently joined Coinbase's on-chain markets team to participate in the development of the Verified pool and other on-chain products.
Coinbase stated that the Opyn team had launched the first DeFi options protocol and developed Power Perpetuals and Squeeth products. It is worth mentioning that Opyn was sued by the CFTC in 2023 for allegedly operating an unregistered trading platform and ultimately settled by paying a $250,000 fine, with co-founders Zubin Koticha and Alexis Gauba resigning at the time.
It is reported that through two funding rounds, Opyn had raised at least $10.9 million, including a $2.16 million seed round 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 of this year, Coinbase formally acquired the founders of the crypto yield platform Sensible, Jacob Frantz and Zachary Salmon. The two naturally joined Coinbase, while the whereabouts of the other few employees are unknown.
Ultimately, the project was shut down in October, with the project's official account's last tweet being a "welcome message" from Coinbase Head of Corporate Development Aklil Ibssa.
Project official account: https://x.com/holdsensible
Echo: Launchpad Platform
In October of this year, Coinbase acquired the Launchpad platform Echo, owned by crypto KOL Cobie (well-known cryptocurrency trader Jordan Fish), for $375 million. This is the second income Cobie has received from Coinbase—the first was his hosted podcast UpOnly NFT being acquired by Coinbase for $25 million. This also means that, although this ticket does not grant any sponsorship rights, we, the onlookers, can still look forward to the official release of future programs.
Additionally, Cobie also stated that ECHO will continue to operate as an independent platform for the time being, 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 of this year, Coinbase VP of Product Management Max Branzburg revealed plans to acquire the Solana trading platform Vector.fun. The transaction is expected to be completed before the end of the year, but the terms and specific amount were not disclosed.
After the acquisition is completed, Vector.fun's existing application will be shut down, and its technology will be used to enhance the decentralized trading functionality of the Coinbase app, enabling users to trade Solana ecosystem assets directly through Coinbase, breaking through the current limitation of only supporting on-chain trading on Base.
Regarding this acquisition, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated, "Earlier this year I said we would step up our Solana game. Since then, we've brought AgentKit and x402 to Solana, and upgraded infrastructure to scale our services (5x block processing throughput, 4x RPC performance). Now, we're bringing SOL-native tech and talent onto our platform to level up Coinbase's support for Solana trading. This is how we build the Everything Exchange."
Another noteworthy point is that this acquisition was criticized by market participants for alleged insider trading. The project's token TNSR surged 8x in two days before crashing 40%. Moonrock Capital founder Simon Dedic criticized Coinbase for涉嫌 (suspected) insider trading. Additionally, Vector.fun's developer Tensor and its token remain independent from this acquisition. It was inferred from this that Tensor would cash out a large, undisclosed sum while TNSR holders would "get nothing," once again highlighting the misalignment between equity and tokens.
Project official account: https://x.com/VECTORDOTFUN
The Clearing Company: Prediction Market Startup Platform
The most recent acquisition happened yesterday.
Coinbase officially provided a detailed announcement of the acquisition of the prediction market platform The Clearing Company, mentioning:
- The Clearing Company team is led by founder and CEO Toni Gemayel (Odaily Planet Daily Note: former Growth Lead at Polymarket and Kalshi, some employees are from Polymarket) and will subsequently help scale world-class prediction market trading on Coinbase, accelerating our exciting goal of this being part of the Everything Exchange;
- The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed in January.
It is worth mentioning that Coinbase previously launched a prediction market service powered by Kalshi and stated it would introduce more prediction market platform contracts. Now, it seems, indeed. Additionally, The Clearing Company completed a $15 million seed round in August of 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 piece of the puzzle 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 did not disclose specific amounts, and most were talent acquisitions—except for those like Deribit, which already had an extremely high industry status and rich liquidity/trading volume; Vector.fun, which serves as an ecosystem network expansion bridge component; or The Clearing Company, which is in a hot sector with promising future potential.
Coinbase's ultimate goal has actually been mentioned often by CEO Brian Armstrong and Base lead Jesse Pollak: "Everything Exchange." Its final purpose, looked at in reverse, is—Exchange Everything, to create 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 prediction market event betting, truly turning "Coinbase as a Service" (CAAS) into a solid moat similar to business models like stablecoin custody.
In the competition with top CEXs like Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Upbit, if most exchanges have chosen a path of "breaking through at a single point," then Coinbase has chosen a path with a higher ceiling but also greater difficulty—"systematic coordination."
But its超然 (transcendent) status as the "first cryptocurrency stock" and its持续 (sustained) development momentum will likely propel it to become a representative investment target in the crypto industry. No wonder it is the "largest crypto holding" in Cathie Wood's Ark Invest.
