The cryptocurrency industry is shifting into an “aggregation era” as leading platforms race to become all‑in‑one superapp that combine trading, payments, DeFi and identity services, according to a recent report.
Binance adopts a monolithic super‑app model, folding spot and derivatives trading, staking, lending, payments and a Web3 wallet into one interface to offer what the report describes as “one interface, infinite utility.”
Coinbase is pursuing an “Everything Exchange” strategy: it is broadening revenue beyond fees with staking, stablecoin yields, subscriptions and a Base layer‑2 and consumer app designed to encourage daily use.
A separate project led by Sam Altman is building a combined payments, encrypted chat and digital identity product with a biometric‑linked World ID focused on proof of personhood.
Kraken favors a federated constellation approach, unbundling the front end into specialized apps for memecoins, remittances and pro trading while keeping shared infrastructure for liquidity, custody and identity.
Other firms named include Gemini, Robinhood, MEXC and BingX, with Gemini integrating prediction markets, Robinhood centralizing liquidity across asset classes, and smaller entrants such as MEXC and BingX pursuing hybrid CEX‑DEX and social trading features respectively.
Each platform choice reflects trade‑offs between simplicity and specialization: a single app can reduce user friction but risks feature overload; modular front ends can target niche use cases without compromising core infrastructure.
Technology drivers and regulatory backdrop
The report credits several technical advances for enabling aggregation, noting that improvements in smart accounts, secure cross‑chain bridging and Layer‑1/Layer‑2 scaling have lowered transaction costs and latency, making on‑chain features more viable for everyday users.
Composability lets platforms integrate third‑party functionality faster and at lower development cost, while the report also highlights the need for robust real‑time data stacks to support high‑frequency trading and millisecond execution across integrated services.
Regulatory clarity is cited as a critical de‑risking factor, with measures in the EU (MiCA) and regulatory developments referenced for the US and Asia drawing institutional capital and shaping product road maps. Firms face compliance choices around custody, KYC/AML and cross‑border payments when bundling services; regulatory constraints will influence which features can be offered in which jurisdictions.
The race to build crypto super apps is reframing where value concentrates in the ecosystem—toward platforms that control the user interface and day‑to‑day experience rather than isolated protocols.
