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Crypto M&A Doubled to $1.1B in 2020: PwC
The average deal size went from $19.2 million in 2019 to $52.7 million in 2020, with a greater share of activity taking place in Europe and Asia.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:33 p.m. Published Mar 29, 2021, 10:39 a.m.
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The value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the crypto sector more than doubled to $1.1 billion in 2020, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
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- The average deal size went from $19.2 million in 2019 to $52.7 million in 2020, according to PwC, with a greater share of activity taking place in Europe and Asia.
- Furthermore, 2021 is “already on track to significantly surpass it from every single metric,” Henri Arslanian, PwC’s global crypto leader, said.
- This will be driven by institutional players, large investors and cash-rich crypto platforms, he said.
- PwC’s report predicts institutional investment in the crypto industry will continue to increase, thanks to the interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins.
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Bitcoin hash rate slides during U.S. winter storm while markets shrug off mining disruption
The temporary loss of mining power underscores academic concerns that geographic and pool concentration can magnify infrastructure failures, though markets showed little immediate reaction.
What to know:
- Bitcoin’s hashrate fell about 10 percent during a U.S. winter storm, underscoring how local power disruptions can strain the network’s capacity to process transactions.
- Researchers have shown that concentrated mining, as seen in a 2021 regional outage in China, can lead to slower block times, higher fees and broader market disruptions.
- With a few large pools now controlling most of Bitcoin’s hashrate, the network is increasingly vulnerable to localized infrastructure failures, even as the price of BTC remains largely unaffected in the short term.
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