Cryptocurrency payment company MoonPay has agreed to acquire private market infrastructure platform North Capital in an all-stock transaction valued at over $60 million. Upon completion of the deal, North Capital will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of MoonPay. MoonPay positions this acquisition as a compliant foundation for tokenizing real-world assets.

North Capital is headquartered in Utah, founded and led by CEO James P. Dowd. Its most valuable asset is a complete set of U.S. securities licenses: it includes a broker-dealer registered with the SEC, an alternative trading system (ATS) called PPEX, a transfer agent, and an investment advisor, and is a member of FINRA and SIPC. Each stage of issuance, trading, registration, and custody has a corresponding licensed entity.

In terms of business scale, North Capital's platform has supported approximately $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transactions. Over 1,250 assets have been approved for trading on PPEX. Services cover private securities fundraising, asset management, clearing, custody, secondary trading of exempt securities, investor account opening and trade processing, as well as subscription fund custody. Recently, it also partnered with tZERO to trade tokenized assets on an alternative trading system.

On the buyer's side, MoonPay was established in 2019, with CEO Ivan Soto-Wright, serving over 35 million users and more than 1,500 enterprise clients across 180 countries. Its business includes payment, trading, merchant collection, and stablecoin infrastructure. This year, it has completed two acquisitions: DFlow, a trading infrastructure provider on the Solana blockchain, and Israeli crypto security firm Sodot (a $100 million stock deal). North Capital is its third acquisition this year.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by both boards but still awaits regulatory approval and the fulfillment of customary closing conditions. Ivan Soto-Wright stated that this acquisition lays the regulatory groundwork for the large-scale adoption of tokenized real-world assets. James P. Dowd noted that North Capital was established to bring access, liquidity, and transparency to the private market.

In terms of market mechanisms, this is a license-driven strategic acquisition that does not involve secondary market trading. The all-stock payment means MoonPay does not spend cash; North Capital's shareholders will become MoonPay's shareholders, betting on the combined valuation. Beneficiaries are tokenized issuers and private fund managers who need compliant channels, as they can complete fundraising, trading, and custody through the same entry point. Those under pressure are crypto platforms without U.S. securities licenses: Robinhood and Kraken are both expanding their tokenized securities businesses, and licensed channels are becoming a scarce resource, forcing them to rely on partner platforms, which will worsen costs and negotiation positions.

Source: Public information