Coinbase has decided that the next wave of crypto trading may not come from traditional exchanges at all, but from fast-moving, socially driven on-chain platforms.
Key Takeaways:
Coinbase is buying Vector.fun to add Solana-style on-chain trading directly into its main app
All Vector.fun tech and staff will be absorbed to boost Coinbase’s decentralized trading features
The acquisition reinforces Coinbase’s aggressive expansion during a record year of crypto M&A
In a move that caught much of the market off guard, the company has agreed to acquire the Solana-native project Vector.fun — a platform known not for institutional liquidity, but for memecoin speculation and real-time betting among retail users.
Rather than keeping Vector.fun as a standalone application, Coinbase plans to dismantle the external product and rebuild its technology directly into the core Coinbase app. Every member of Vector.fun’s 13-person team will transition to Coinbase, reinforcing that the motivation of the deal is talent and technology, not a brand acquisition. The price of the acquisition wasn’t disclosed, but Fortune reports that Coinbase expects it to finalize before the end of 2025.
A Faster Route to the On-Chain Market Than Building From Scratch
Coinbase has long hinted that it wants to give customers exposure to decentralized liquidity without forcing them to learn new interfaces or leave the Coinbase environment. Buying Vector.fun gives it an immediate Solana trading engine — complete with simple token swapping and live position visibility — rather than requiring years of internal development.
The decision lines up with Coinbase’s ambition to evolve into what executives have described as an “everything exchange,” blending CeFi reliability with DeFi accessibility. Base, Coinbase’s own Layer-2 blockchain, already opened the door to decentralized liquidity, but until now, the experience relied too heavily on third-party dApps.
The Acquisition Is Part of a Bigger Story
Vector.fun is not an isolated purchase. Coinbase has entered one of the most aggressive acquisition periods in its history. Just this year, the company acquired the derivatives giant Deribit for $2.9 billion, added Echo for $375 million, and explored but ultimately abandoned a $2 billion takeover of stablecoin company BVNK.
Such rapid expansion wouldn’t be possible without the turnaround of 2024 and 2025, which provided Coinbase with the strongest period of profitability it has seen since going public. After years of surviving bear-market pressure, the company is now using its momentum to reshape the exchange landscape instead of simply competing within it.
Consolidation Is Becoming the New Normal in Crypto
Coinbase’s acquisition streak reflects a broader shift rather than a solo strategy. Ripple purchased GTreasury for $1 billion. Kraken bought NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion. And according to Architect Partners, crypto-related mergers and acquisitions surpassed $10 billion in Q3 2025 alone — the largest quarterly total ever recorded in the industry.
Against that backdrop, Coinbase’s deal is more than an expansion; it’s a signal. The company appears determined to lead the next phase of exchange evolution — one where centralized credibility and decentralized access aren’t competing philosophies, but components of the same trading ecosystem.
