Trump Ushers in $8.2 Billion Wave of Crypto Deals

A cryptocurrency-friendly White House has kicked off a wave of digital asset megadeals.

As The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Saturday (April 26), these deals are happening as crypto companies aim to make the most of relaxed U.S. regulation and the potential for increased mainstream interest in their industry.

Among the recent deals was the launch of Twenty One Capital, a new bitcoin company that aims to go public through a $3.6 billion merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) headed by Brandon Lutnick, son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

This is the third crypto deal valued at more than $1 billion to be announced in the past few weeks, the report added. Also in April, Ripple said it was acquiring prime broker Hidden Road for $1.25 billion. And in March, Kraken reached a $1.5 billion deal for futures broker NinjaTrader in March, which WSJ characterized as one of the largest tie-ups ever between trading platforms dealing in crypto and traditional assets.

Altogether, crypto companies have reached 88 deals worth a total of $8.2 billion since the start of 2025, the report added, citing data from advisory firm Architect Partners. That is almost triple the transaction value from 188 deals in the crypto sector in the entirety of 2024.

“There’s optimism that finally things changed,” said Eric Risley, founder of Architect Partners. “The traditional crypto players that are large and at scale are now back in a growth-minded mode, and one of the tools that they have for growth is acquisitions.”

As WSJ noted, crypto dealmaking had slumped in recent years following the implosion of the FTX exchange, which shook up the market and led to increased regulatory oversight. But when Trump returned to the White House, attitudes began to shift.

The president has named crypto-friendly regulators and promised to make the U.S. the “undisputed bitcoin superpower,” while the Republican-led Congress is working on legislation to create a regulatory framework for digital assets.

Among Trump’s appointees is Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins, who last week criticized the regulatory policy of the Biden administration and promised to deal with the “long festering issues” surrounding digital assets and blockchain technology.

“Innovation has been stifled for the last several years due to market and regulatory uncertainty that unfortunately the SEC has fostered,” Atkins said at the regulator’s third Crypto Task Force roundtable.