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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

Elliot Chun
April 5, 2024
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As crypto (crypto assets and digital assets) solidifies itself as a sustainable asset class, market participants must have different tools to track the performance of the industry. Bitcoin has long been the bellwether gauge of the industry’s performance with Ether sprinkled along the way, but neither are comprehensive in capturing the impact that this technology is delivering across all industries.

 

There are a few indexes that seek to track the performance of our industry, including the CoinDesk20 Index, Nasdaq Crypto Index, S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Market Index, and STOXX Digital Asset Blue Chip Index. Each index covers a specific area of the industry, ranging from tokens to publicly traded companies.

 

In understanding the importance of having these tools that legitimize the crypto industry, we created the Architect Crypto Public Company Index. Our objective is to track the performance of publicly traded companies that are crypto-native or that have significant parts of their business driven by the use of blockchain. 

 

Established on April 14, 2021 (the day Coinbase went public), the index is a price weighted average across the three Subsectors in our crypto public companies snapshot. 

 

The current Subsector weightings are:

  • Crypto Investment Platforms – 45%
  • Bitcoin Network Operators45%
  • Crypto Influenced10%

 

In the bottom graph, we compare the performance of the Architect Crypto Public Company Index against Bitcoin, S&P 500, and Gold. The Index lags versus BTC and has still not recovered to its Apr 2021 launch value, but its last 12 month performance is impressive.

 

As blockchain and crypto percolates throughout most publicly traded companies and transitions from emerging tech to essential tech, we expect to add more names to this index and see sustained outperformance going forward.

 

From a conference perspective, we attended NFT.NYC this week and the good energy continues to build. NFT.NYC is known for driving adoption in the individual user demographic. We will be at Paris Blockchain Week Apr 9 – 12.