The cryptocurrency industry is likely to see more projects acquired by larger companies, which could lead to a much less fragmented sector in the coming months, says Bullish CEO Tom Farley.
“I have been in the stock sector during continued massive consolidation… the same will happen now, starting with cryptocurrencies,” Farley he said during a Friday interview on CNBC.
Farley, who served as president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) until 2018, said the recent decline in the cryptocurrency market will be a key catalyst, with Bitcoin (BTC) down nearly 45% from its October high of $126,100 and trading at $69,405 at press time. According to to CoinMarketCap
Farley says consolidation should have happened by now
However, he said that industry consolidation should have happened earlier, but inflated valuations maintain false optimism. “This should have happened a year or two ago,” he said.
“People were still hoping they would get 2020 valuations, so we talked to companies that said, hey, we have $10 million in revenue, it’s not growing, we want $200 million to buy the company,” he said.
“This dream will end,” Farley said, adding that “people will realize they don’t have companies, they have products and they need to connect, they need to scale and it will happen.”
Consolidation in the cryptocurrency industry can cut both ways. Underperforming projects can be absorbed by larger companies, but this process can lead to layoffs, layoffs, and internal industry disruption if companies merge or liquidate.
Related: Retail Crypto Investors Try to ‘Meta-Analyze’ Crypto Market Crash: Santiment
Eva Oberholzer, chief investment officer at venture capital firm Ajna Capital, told Cointelegraph in September 2025 that VC firms have become much more selective about the crypto projects they invest in due to the market’s maturity.
“It’s more difficult because we’ve reached a different stage in crypto, similar to every cycle we’ve seen in the past with other technologies,” Oberholzer told Cointelegraph.
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