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Crypto M&A 2026: 10 deals confirmed, 2 disclosed a price

By NAUT Research · · 6 min read

10 of 43 Crypto M&A 2026 M&A rows on NAUT with a buyer an outside report confirms, 2 July to 24 October 2026. Logos: Tazapay, OpenZeppelin, North Capital, FastNEAR, Efforce, Bluvo, Farcaster, AptPay, ZealWallet, BTCBOX, Circle, S&P Global, MoonPay, SVRN, TROOPS, Mesh.

Crypto M&A 2026, as NAUT records it: 43 M&A rows carry a 2026 date, 13 of them name a buyer, and 10 of those 13 have a buyer and a target that an outside report confirms. Of the 10, 2 disclose a price: Circle agreed to pay $400M for Tazapay on 8 September 2026, and MoonPay agreed an all-stock deal worth over $60M for North Capital on 23 September 2026.

Data as of 2 November 2026, from NAUT's own deal records, read that day. The scope is rows NAUT types as M&A with a 2026 announcement date: all 43 of them fall between 2 July and 24 October 2026, so the crypto acquisitions 2026 record on NAUT covers a 4-month window inside the year rather than the full 12 months. Every deal below is checked against 2 outside reports, listed under Sources. NAUT Research wrote this report; no one paid for it.

Which crypto M&A 2026 deals name a buyer, and who bought?

10 deals, ordered by announcement date. The price column is what NAUT's row stores, and 8 of the 10 store none.

Date Target Buyer Price
8 Sep $400M
17 Sep Not stored
23 Sep $60M
8 Oct Not stored
12 Oct Not stored
13 Oct Not stored
15 Oct Not stored
19 Oct Not stored
23 Oct ether.fi Not stored
24 Oct RedotPay Not stored

Each of the 10 deals has a different buyer: no buyer appears twice in these 10 rows. 8 of the 10 buyers have a NAUT page linked on the row itself; for ZealWallet and BTCBOX, NAUT holds the buyer as text in the deal headline, so the row carries no buyer link. The 2 targets are on NAUT at /projects/zealwallet and /projects/btcbox.

How many crypto M&A 2026 rows did NAUT have to drop?

33 of the 43. The table below is the whole ladder, month by month, and the last column is the 10 above.

Month M&A rows Buyer named In list
July 2026 16 0 0
August 2026 5 0 0
September 2026 12 3 3
October 2026 10 10 7
2026 total 43 13 10

Where the 33 went. 30 rows name no buyer at all: NAUT has the target, the type and the date, with the acquirer field and the deal headline both empty. 1 more row names a buyer but its target company has no NAUT page, so the deal cannot link to one, and it is a data defect NAUT has logged. That leaves 12, and the source check cut 2 of those:

  • , dated 8 October on NAUT with Formation as the buyer. The reports for that week describe Orca and Loopscale merging under a new company called Formation, which is a different event from Formation buying Loopscale, so the row stays out until NAUT's record matches.
  • , dated 8 October on NAUT with TruGolf as the buyer. TruGolf announced the acquisition on 18 August 2026 and reported completion on 9 October 2026, so NAUT's 8 October date matches neither, and the row stays out until the date is fixed.

6 of the 43 rows carry a dollar figure, and 2 of those 6 sit in the 10 confirmed deals. The other 4 sit in rows this list drops, and all 4 have an empty buyer field on NAUT's record, so there is no acquirer to check: OpenRouter at $7B, which is also outside the crypto scope gate as an LLM API router, TradeZero at $231M, NYDIG at $42.5M and Mobula at $17M.

What each target does, and what the buyer gets

  • runs cross-border payments out of Singapore. Circle agreed on 8 September 2026 to pay $400M in stock, in one of its largest publicly disclosed acquisitions, with the deal expected to close in 2027.
  • is described in the 17 September release as "the security standard for onchain finance". S&P Global announced the agreement that day and reported completion on 26 October 2026; terms were not disclosed.
  • is an SEC-registered broker-dealer working on tokenized securities. MoonPay agreed an all-stock deal worth over $60M on 23 September 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
  • runs NEAR infrastructure. The 8 October release is headed "SVRN Acquires FastNEAR, Expanding Its Role Operating Essential NEAR Infrastructure", the first acquisition under the SVRN name, with terms not disclosed.
  • works on energy efficiency tokenization. NAUT's row records a merger signed with TROOPS on 12 October 2026, and the reports that day describe a conditional sales and purchase agreement for TROOPS to acquire EFFORCE Group, subject to approvals.
  • is called "a developer of exchange connectivity technology" in Mesh's own 13 October release. Terms were not disclosed.
  • is a social protocol. Network School "announced on October 15, 2026 that it is acquiring the social protocol from Neynar", per the report of that day.
  • runs real-time payment rails. The 19 October report says "KORT Payments said it will acquire AptPay Inc. to aid its expansion across North America. Terms of the deal were not disclosed."
  • is a self-custody wallet. The 23 October entry says "ether.fi acquires Zeal! Zeal users can now migrate to ether.fi directly inside the Zeal app." The reports describe selected Zeal assets changing hands.
  • is a Japanese crypto asset exchange. RedotPay announced the acquisition on 24 October 2026, saying it will offer services compliant with Japanese regulations.

What this tells a BD team

  • Every buyer NAUT names in 2026 sits in the last 2 months of the window. All 13 rows that name a buyer are dated September or October 2026, and the 10 confirmed deals run from 8 September to 24 October 2026. A target that was bought in the last 8 weeks is in the middle of integrating, which is when tooling, custody, compliance and payments vendors get picked.
  • 8 of the 10 buyers have a NAUT page linked on the deal row. Circle, S&P Global, MoonPay, SVRN, TROOPS, Mesh, Network School and KORT Payments each have a page with their team on it, so the buyer side is reachable without a referral.
  • Payments is where the buying happened. 6 of the 10 targets move money or connect to the venues that do: Tazapay, North Capital, Bluvo, AptPay, ZealWallet and BTCBOX. A BD team selling into payments has 6 newly owned accounts and 6 new owners above them.
How a BD team can work these 10 deals
  1. Start with the 2 priced dealsCircle at $400M for Tazapay and MoonPay at over $60M for North Capital are the 2 of 10 with a price, so the budget is public.
  2. Pitch the buyer, not only the target8 of the 10 buyers have a NAUT page with their team, including S&P Global and Mesh.
  3. Work the payments cluster6 of the 10 targets sit in payments, wallets or exchange rails, from AptPay to BTCBOX.
  4. Reach out while it is newsAll 10 deals were announced between 8 September and 24 October 2026, so the integration decisions are live.

What this tells a founder weighing a sale

  • A price is the exception. 2 of the 10 confirmed deals disclosed one, and 8 of the 10 rows store none, so a comparable number is hard to get from public reporting alone.
  • Strategics and listed companies are buying. Circle, S&P Global and MoonPay bought in September 2026, and TruGolf took Polymath onto Nasdaq in a deal it announced in August 2026. Stock, not cash, carried both priced deals in this list.
  • Small infrastructure teams get bought by their own ecosystem. SVRN took FastNEAR, the NEAR infrastructure operator, and Network School took the Farcaster protocol, so the nearest buyer is often the network a team already serves.
How a founder can use these 10 deals
  1. List the 10 buyersEach of the 10 confirmed deals has a different buyer, so no single acquirer repeated in this window.
  2. Find the acquirer closest to you6 of the 10 targets are in payments, wallets or exchange rails, and 2 are infrastructure teams bought inside their own ecosystem.
  3. Read the 2 priced deals$400M for Tazapay and over $60M for North Capital, both in stock.
  4. Get to the corp dev side8 of the 10 buyers have a NAUT page listing their team, which is where a first conversation starts.

How to reach the buyers and the targets

NAUT stores crypto company acquisitions row by row, each row tied to the target's page and, where it holds the buyer as an entity, to the buyer's page too. Every target and 8 of the 10 buyers above link to a NAUT page, which lists the team and the people on file. The 2 buyers without a link on their deal row, ether.fi and RedotPay, are held as text in NAUT's deal headline, so start from the target's page in those 2 cases: ZealWallet and BTCBOX.

Related reading on NAUT: Crypto M&A deals: 43 since July, 10 name the buyer and Crypto VC funding Q3 2026: NAUT 142 rounds, Galaxy 296 deals.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes, company by company and buyer by buyer. GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/tazapay returns the target with its team, GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/circle returns the buyer with its team and portfolio rows (company, roundType, amountUsd, announceDate, isLead), and GET https://api.naut.so/v1/search?q=crypto%20payments finds projects and people together; every call is a GET with Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY, costs 5 credits, and the docs are at naut.so/docs/api with plans at naut.so/pricing. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for the people on these pages unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to open them.

Crypto M&A 2026 FAQ

Which crypto companies were acquired in 2026?

On NAUT's record, 10 acquisitions announced between 8 September and 24 October 2026 have a buyer and a target that an outside report confirms: Tazapay by Circle, OpenZeppelin by S&P Global, North Capital by MoonPay, FastNEAR by SVRN, Efforce by TROOPS, Bluvo by Mesh, Farcaster by Network School, AptPay by KORT Payments, ZealWallet by ether.fi and BTCBOX by RedotPay. NAUT holds 43 M&A rows dated 2026 in total, all of them announced between 2 July and 24 October 2026.

How many crypto M&A 2026 deals disclosed a price?

2 of the 10 confirmed deals. Circle agreed to pay $400M in stock for Tazapay on 8 September 2026, and MoonPay agreed an all-stock deal worth over $60M for North Capital on 23 September 2026.

Who bought the most crypto companies in 2026 on NAUT's record?

No buyer bought twice. Across the 10 confirmed deals from 8 September to 24 October 2026, there are 10 different buyers, and 30 of NAUT's 43 M&A rows dated 2026 name no buyer at all, so this count is NAUT's record of the window and not a count of every deal in the market.

Where can I find these buyers and targets, and their contact channels?

All 10 targets and 8 of the 10 buyers in this article have a NAUT page with their team on it, reachable from the table above or with GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/tazapay and GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/circle at 5 credits a call. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for those people unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to open them.

Sources

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