2024 and early 2025 witnessed a spectacular recovery in the Web3 M&A market, with both the number and value of deals soaring compared to 2023. But more notable were the multi-billion dollar "bridge" deals, signaling an irreversible convergence between the old and new worlds.  

• Stripe acquires Bridge.xyz ($1.1B): The payments giant is making a big bet on stablecoins as a global, low-cost, and efficient payment system.  

• Kraken acquires NinjaTrader ($1.5B): A crypto-native company expands into traditional finance, creating a multi-asset "financial supermarket" for nearly two million new users.  

• Robinhood acquires Bitstamp ($200M): A strategic move to acquire over 50 global operating licenses, accelerating international expansion and entering the institutional client segment.  

The main driver behind these deals is not speculation, but the acquisition of strategic "pieces": payment systems, legal licenses, and user acquisition channels.

While the overall market is buzzing, the Solana ecosystem has its own unique M&A story, led by DEX aggregator Jupiter. Instead of isolated deals, Jupiter is pursuing a deliberate vertical integration strategy to build a comprehensive "super app."  

By acquiring a series of key components, Jupiter is controlling the entire journey of a DeFi user on Solana:

• SonarWatch: Portfolio management.  

• Moonshot: Wallet and retail/memecoin user acquisition channel.  

• SolanaFM: Blockchain explorer and data infrastructure.  

• Coinhall: Cross-chain trading terminal, expanding beyond Solana.  

• Ultimate Wallet: Self-custody wallet.  

This strategy creates a robust "user-experience moat," turning Jupiter into the default interface for Solana DeFi and establishing an extremely strong competitive advantage in the Web3 environment.  

Each major L1 blockchain is pursuing a distinct M&A strategy that reflects its core philosophy.

Compared to the multi-billion dollar mega-deals in Web2's gaming and infrastructure sectors, Web3 M&A is still in its infancy. Web2 M&A aims to consolidate mature markets, while Web3 M&A focuses on acquiring foundational technology, talent, and initial user channels.  

The trend of consolidation and the rise of dominant, vertically integrated players like Jupiter seems to contradict the core decentralized ethos of Web3. However, this may be a necessary stage of maturation.  

This M&A wave is consolidating the application and access layers of Web3, creating more powerful, user-friendly, and legally compliant platforms. This, in turn, makes the underlying decentralized protocols more useful and accessible to millions of new users. This consolidation is not the end of decentralization, but perhaps the very path that will bring Web3 to the masses.

Detailed report information here: https://www.notion.so/blacktinos/The-Consolidation-Era-An-In-Depth-Analysis-of-Web3-M-A-in-2024-2025-with-a-Focus-on-the-Solana-Ecos-21df09ac138a8076a13fe2d7b12fcdd7?source=copy_link