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Swyftx Acquires Caleb & Brown
Swyftx Acquires Caleb & Brown

Transaction Overview

On July 1st, 2025, Swyftx, one of the largest Australian cryptocurrency exchanges, announced a definitive agreement to acquire Caleb & Brown, a high-net-worth-focused crypto brokerage, for an undisclosed amount.

 

Target: Caleb & Brown

Caleb and Brown is a Melbourne-based, high net worth focused crypto brokerage that specializes in personalized trading services across the digital asset landscape. Caleb & Brown focuses on the relationship model used successfully across traditional  financial services – every client that comes onto their platform gets assigned a broker to assist them in executing trades  and handling all customer service needs. Caleb and Brown’s core services include 1) Brokerage Services, which provide personalized 24/7 trading support for 250+ digital assets, 2) an OTC Desk, which provides high volume trading solutions with deep liquidity and competitive pricing, 3) the Caleb and Brown Asset Management, an actively managed crypto asset fund for accredited investor, 4) crypto custody. 

 

The business has more than AUD $2 billion of digital assets under custody and was founded by Rupert Hackett and Dr. Prash Puspanathan in 2016. C&B is led by CEO Jackson Zeng and has 64 team members across both Australia and the US. Caleb & Brown has not raised any outside capital. 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

Architect Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Caleb & Brown. 

 

Swyftx’s acquisition of Caleb & Brown marks the largest acquisition targeting high net worth crypto investors. It also reflects two important shifts in the evolution of crypto exchanges, particularly within the ANZ region.

 

First, high-net-worth client service is becoming a strategic differentiator. Exchanges are beginning to recognize that personalized brokerage and deep client relationships offer a competitive advantage while greatly reducing attrition. This is a model that high-net-worth clients are accustomed to in their financial lives. Caleb & Brown’s approach, which assigns a dedicated broker to every client, stands apart from the high-volume, low-touch models that dominate the market. Swyftx gains access not only to clients but also to an established business model that emphasizes trust, service, and retention in a way few crypto exchanges have pursued.

 

Second, this is a milestone moment for ANZ crypto M&A. While there have been many plays for global expansion by exchanges, this is the first of its kind in Australia moving into the US, signaling that the region is entering a more active phase of market maturity. 

 

We believe this transaction will serve as a catalyst for further strategic activity to expand globally and to augment services as companies seek differentiation in both product and customer segments.

 

Strategic Rationale

Swyftx is acquiring Caleb & Brown to expand into the United States via C&B’s regulatory framework, and to acquire the relationship model inherently required with a higher-tier customer base. This acquisition will grant Swyftx entry into the U.S. 12 to 24 months faster than otherwise possible organically. Furthermore, the acquisition diversifies Swyftx’s primarily retail client base to include 25k+ high net worth individuals in numerous countries. 

 

“Caleb & Brown has quietly established one of the most impressive brokerage offerings in the world, with a heavily differentiated private client service. We see enormous growth potential.” – Jason Titman

Crypto Public Companies Snapshot

Crypto Public Companies Snapshot

Todd White
July 14, 2023
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This week we’ve introduced the “Architect Crypto Public Company Index”, a price-weighted average across our three public crypto subsectors. Our new index applies a 45% weight to Crypto Investment Platforms, 45% to Bitcoin Network Operators, and 10% to Crypto Influenced groups.

 

We’ve also added Bitcoin Depot to the Crypto Investment Platform subsector. Their de-SPAC was completed with the company listing on NASDAQ under the ticker “BTM” and trading beginning July 1st. The stock is trading today at $3.38 resulting in a market capitalization of $210M.

 

Meanwhile, over in the Southern District of New York…

 

The most notable event of the week was yesterday’s District Court ruling in the SEC suit against Ripple Labs, initiated in August of 2022. Judge Torres ruled that the XRP token is not inherently a security, and the sale of XRP tokens on exchanges and through algorithmic trading are not investment contracts. The SEC also scored a partial win in that institutional sales did constitute unregistered securities offerings.  The core premise is that the underlying asset is not dispositive, and the context and circumstances of a transaction are critical.  These include the nature of an offering and the reasonable expectations of the parties, so that some sales of a crypto asset may, while others may not, constitute regulated securities transactions.

 

The ruling is full of nuance. It will undoubtedly take time to fully digest its implications, and it remains subject to appeal. But the notion that it is not the token but the transaction that matters seems a palpable blow to the SEC’s recent enforcement efforts. It has been lauded as a victory by the industry, and several exchanges including Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp and Crypto.com moved quickly to relist XRP. The market response was equally swift, with XRP and Coinbase posting strong immediate gains, before losing ground in what seems a broad market pullback as of the time of this writing.

 

These are indeed exciting and informative times for the crypto universe. We may finally begin to descry glimmers of the U.S. regulatory clarity that the market has been seeking.