Share this article
In $2.9B Deal, Coinbase Agrees to Buy Deribit to Expand in U.S. Crypto Options Market
The deal includes $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock.
Updated May 9, 2025, 7:18 a.m. Published May 8, 2025, 1:28 p.m.
What to know:
- Coinbase agreed to acquire crypto options exchange Deribit for $2.9 billion in cash and stock, marking a major move into U.S. crypto derivatives.
- The deal follows a months-long bidding contest with Kraken, which opted instead to buy NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion.
- Deribit processed $1.2 trillion in trading volume last year, making it a dominant player in the crypto options market.
Coinbase agreed to pay $2.9 billion to buy bitcoin and ether options platform Deribit, according to a press release, marking its official push into the highly profitable crypto derivatives market in the U.S.
The crypto exchange, alongside competitor Kraken, had been in talks to buy Deribit for months, with Bloomberg reporting that options giant could be valued at $4 billion to $5 billion.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Kraken, instead, purchased U.S. futures platform Ninja Trader for $1.5 billion, allowing the exchange to compete with Coinbase in offering futures and derivatives in the U.S.
Coinbase’s acquisition comes after what has been a busy year in crypto dealmaking as companies are positioning themselves in what U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to become the “crypto capital of the world.”
The deal with Deribit includes $700 million in cash and 11 million shares of Coinbase Class A common stock, according to the companies, making it one of the largest deals in the industry and "[giving] the company an immediate and dominant foothold in the high-growth derivatives space ahead of an anticipated increase in institutional adoption of digital assets,” according to a note from Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer.
Founded in 2016, Deribit has quickly taken over market share for digital asset options trading. The exchange processed $1.2 trillion in volume in 2024, a 95% year-over-year increase, the company had reported in January.
UPDATE (May 8, 14:18 UTC): Adds additional comments from Benchmark’s Mark Palmer.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Pye Finance Raises $5M Seed Round Led by Variant and Coinbase Ventures
The platform aims to make locked Solana staking positions tradable via an onchain marketplace.
What to know:
- Pye Finance raised a $5 million seed round led by Variant and Coinbase Ventures, with participation from Solana Labs, Nascent and Gemini.
- The startup is building an onchain marketplace on Solana for time-locked staking positions that can be traded.
- Pye says the product targets Solana’s large pool of staked SOL, worth roughly $75 billion, and aims to give validators and stakers more flexibility over terms and reward flows.
Top Stories
