Crypto Exchange Deribit Valued at $5 Billion for Acquisition

Crypto exchange Deribit, the largest trading platform for Bitcoin and Ethereum options, reportedly weighs a potential sale amid growing interest from crypto companies.

According to Bloomberg, crypto exchange Deribit has been working with Financial Technology Partners, or FT Partners, since early 2023 to evaluate strategic options, including potential bids for the entire firm.

FT Partners initially worked on facilitating secondary stock sales for the existing investors of Deribit and has since taken up an expanded advisory role to include fielding acquisition offers, according to people who are knowledgeable about the discussions. While the talks are private, Bloomberg estimates the valuation of Deribit to be about $4 billion to $5 billion.

Among them, crypto exchange Kraken is said to have at least looked at acquiring Deribit, but nothing materialized. The growing interest in Deribit coincides with the cryptocurrency market’s gaining momentum, fueled partly by a wider rally in digital assets.

The rising momentum also extends to more merger and acquisition activity in the sector. Advisory firm Architect Partners pegged publicly announced crypto-sector merger and acquisition deals as jumping to $1.2 billion for the fourth quarter of last year against $400 million in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Crypto exchange Deribit has benefited from this larger trend, with its trading volume almost doubling in the past year to $1.2 trillion. In nominal terms, the trading volume of options surged 99% to a total of $743 billion last year.