MoonPay buys Sodot to power new institutional crypto services unit

Crypto payments firm MoonPay is stepping further into institutional services after acquiring Sodot, a startup focused on digital asset security.

The company said Wednesday that it will use Sodot’s key management technology as the backbone of a newly formed division built for financial institutions, asset managers, trading firms, and exchanges entering crypto markets.

“We built MoonPay to be the world’s leading crypto payments network,” co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright said in a statement, adding that launching an institutional arm represents “the next stage” in the company’s growth.

According to Bloomberg, the transaction closed in April as an all-stock deal valued at roughly $100 million. MoonPay did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation of the terms.

The deal signals a shift beyond MoonPay’s core retail payments business as demand grows among traditional finance firms for secure wallet infrastructure and custody solutions while entering digital assets.

MoonPay sets sights on institutional clients

The new division will focus on servicing large financial players across trading, tokenized securities, payments, wallet infrastructure, and stablecoin issuance.

Leadership of the unit has been handed to Caroline Pham, who joined MoonPay in December as chief legal and administrative officer after previously serving as acting chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

“There is no one better suited to lead this business than Caroline,” Soto-Wright said, pointing to her experience in financial regulation and capital markets.

Founded in 2023, Sodot builds infrastructure for crypto key management, a core component in securing digital assets and running institutional-grade wallets. Its technology is based on self-hosted multi-party computation, or MPC, which divides private keys into multiple fragments held across separate parties to strengthen security.

Institutional custody race gathers pace

The acquisition comes as more crypto firms expand services tailored for institutions, particularly around custody and trading infrastructure.

Last week, crypto exchange OKX rolled out off-exchange settlement in partnership with BitGo, a move that reduces the need for traders to pre-fund exchange accounts. The setup allows institutions to keep assets with a third-party custodian while still accessing liquidity on the exchange.

Such developments point to a growing push across the industry to build systems that meet the operational and security standards expected by large financial firms entering crypto markets.