Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• More consolidation is likely after record crypto M&A activity in Q1. But there’s a wild card. 

• Markets are eagerly waiting for Trump’s Wednesday tariff announcement. 

• US equities got a jolt from this morning’s labor data (see what we did there?).

‘Feeding frenzy’ possible as crypto M&A picks up 

You’ve heard again and again about the crypto industry “maturing.” More M&A deals are likely to be an ongoing byproduct.

The quarterly number of M&As in crypto is building, reaching a record level during the first three months of 2025. While momentum could snowball from here, the economy’s stability remains a wild card. 

There were 62 crypto M&A transactions in Q1, according to advisory firm Architect Partners — up from 59 deals in the final quarter of 2024. 

Those totals are each nearly double that of Q3 (33 deals). The end of 2024, of course, had lots of crypto optimism: Donald Trump’s election win, regulatory progress/promises, a softening SEC and rising crypto prices.

“I see larger financial players stepping in to add crypto platforms, markets and custodians to their already diversified financial services offerings now that the risk of negative outcomes is greatly reduced,” Baker Botts partner Samuel Dibble told me.

During Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit last month, 10T Holdings CEO Dan Tapiero alluded to an M&A boom coming alongside an expected pick-up in crypto IPOs. 

The Q1 crypto M&A activity was unprecedented in more ways than one, noted Architect Partners founder Eric Risley. Aside from the record deal count, there were seven transactions over $100 million and the largest in crypto history: Kraken's $1.5 billion acquisition of NinjaTrader.  

So-called “bridge transactions” — made between crypto and non-crypto companies — will remain a theme going forward, Risley said. The Kraken buy was a bit atypical given it was a crypto exchange that acquired a traditional foreign exchange and futures business.  

The Kraken-NinjaTrader deal also touches on another trend likely to continue — companies seeking out regulatory compliance and licensing.  

“NinjaTrader is registered with the CFTC and has a lot of regulatory ‘stamps of approval’ that acquirers see as a fast track to expanding — or simply bolting on — crypto capabilities to their existing businesses,” Dibble noted.

Related to that, Dibble said he expects more non-US companies swooping in to acquire US-licensed operators to quicken business plans in what is now a more attractive market. 

“We will see what ultimately unfolds, but I think it has all the signs of being a feeding frenzy,” Dibble noted.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said on the company’s earnings call last week that a lot of private crypto firms probably want to sell.

“They see [TradFi] companies coming in with big balance sheets,” he noted. “And most crypto businesses, fortunately or unfortunately, are tied to the overall index of crypto prices.”

Indeed, economic uncertainty is the counter to a pro-crypto Trump administration, Risley argued. Crypto price performance has proven highly correlated with traditional assets, which have taken a hit given tariff unknowns and even the possibility of a recession. 

“The state of the global economy matters and crypto will be buffeted by economic weakness if it develops,” Risley said. “Economically stressed market participants simply withdraw or take less risk.”

He added: “Skew toward optimism. But perhaps not as strongly as the economic and foreign policy uncertainties have emerged.”

— Ben Strack

You Don’t Need Permission to Build.

We’re gathering the ones laying foundations
The contract authors, protocol architects, and onchain tinkerers pushing things forward.

🎤 Got something live? Apply to speak.

💻 Ready to build? $100K+ in hackathon bounties.

🆓 Dev tickets? On us.

Bitcoin’s price performance during Q1 2025, CoinGlass data shows. This was roughly in line with BTC’s decrease in Q3 2023 (11.5%) and Q2 2024 (11.9%).

The latest quarterly return starkly contrasts the +47.7% bump bitcoin saw during the final three months of 2024. 

ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency, fell 45.4% in the first three months of 2025 (a reversal from a +28.3% return in Q4).

The countdown to President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” is on, and the White House remains tight-lipped about what will be in his tariff announcement tomorrow. 

Bulls are optimistic Trump will put an end to the back-and-forth trade policies that have unnerved markets since he took office. The logic goes: No matter what the levies actually are, at least the policies will be set in stone.

I’m less certain tomorrow will bring, well, certainty. Trump yesterday hinted that he would be open to negotiations with foreign nations, so the pattern of announcing harsh and sweeping policies that are either quickly walked back or delayed may continue after all. 

Most of the conversation around tariffs has been about how higher levies will impact consumer prices (i.e. inflation and Fed policy). But the bigger impact of tariffs is arguably that doing business with the US is going to get more expensive, which in turn is bad for growth. 

Trump and his team maintain that short-term pain is to be expected, and they say it’s a small price to pay for bringing manufacturing back to the US. 

Tomorrow’s announcement will likely focus on global reciprocal tariffs, which we’ll be watching. But personally, I’m most interested in seeing if the administration targets copper imports. 

The US currently produces about half the amount of copper it consumes annually, meaning roughly 1 million metric tons are imported. Copper is virtually in everything: wiring, plumbing, motors, medical devices, personal electronics — you get the picture. 

“Dr. Copper” may be a dated economic indicator, but expect to see the metal dominating headlines should tariffs come down the line.

— Casey Wagner

US equities slipped early in today’s session on February’s disappointing JOLTS report. 

The release shows that job openings continued to drop while quits also declined. Hiring and firing rates were mostly unchanged. Layoffs, however, were on the rise. 

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes fell as much as 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively, after the report was published. 

Job openings came in at 7.56 million — a four-year low — compared with a projected 7.63 million. Additional DOGE-related layoffs and slowdowns in federal hiring are likely not included in February’s figures. 

Odds of a May interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve ticked up slightly on the report and now sit at 15.2%, per data from CME Group. 

Friday’s March employment report will give markets, and central bankers, a better look at current labor market conditions. If inflation continues to inch higher and the employment situation deteriorates further, the current pause may not last much longer.

— Casey Wagner

• Bitcoin regained the $85,000 price level on Tuesday. It hovered around $84,700 at 2:20 pm ET — up 2.6% from 24 hours prior. 

• ETH is up about 4.4% over the last day, trading at about $1,900 at that time.

• Crypto investment firm Paradigm published a set of principles on Tuesday “to articulate in plain English how DeFi might be defined in legislation.” The proposal recommends, among other things, “a baseline spot commodity regulatory regime that largely excludes the SEC.”