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Coinme Acquired by Polygon Labs to Build its Open Money Stack
Coinme Acquired by Polygon Labs to Build its Open Money Stack

Transaction Overview
On January 13th, 2026, Polygon Labs announced it intends to acquire Coinme, a regulated crypto-as-a-service provider. Simultaneously, Polygon also announced the acquisition of Sequence, enabling payment flows across blockchain networks. Both acquisitions help build a fully integrated, rules-compliant stablecoin payments system – Poygon’s Open Money Stack.

Target: Coinme
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Seattle, Coinme is a U.S.-regulated digital asset payments company offering crypto-as-a-service and stablecoin and crypto payment infrastructure for enterprises, fintechs, wallets, and payment applications.

Coinme is licensed and operates in 48 U.S. states, as well as Puerto Rico, and has built systems designed to handle fiat-to-crypto and stablecoin payments at scale while meeting U.S. regulatory requirements.

Coinme provides capabilities that partners integrate into their products. These capabilities, delivered as a set of APIs or SDKs, include KYC, payments by debit card, bank transfer, or cash, converting between fiat and crypto, trading, and custody, so partners can offer end-to-end crypto and stablecoin features embedded in their own applications.

Coinme also supports a large cash-to-crypto network through partnerships, providing the software and compliance layer that enables cash on-ramps and off-ramps at 50,000+ locations across the U.S.

Coinme serves more than one million users and has processed more than $1.3 billion in total transactions since it launched. Its enterprise customers include Coinstar, Exodus, Mercuryo, Baanx, and Breeze.

Coinme was co-founded by CEO Neil Bergquist and has raised $41M in equity funding from Pantera, Digital Currency Group, Coinstar, Circle, and MoneyGram.

Coinme competitors include: ZeroHash, MoonPay, Bridge | Stripe, Banxa | OSL, and Paxos.

Buyer: Polygon Labs
Polygon was founded in 2017 as Matic Network and is actively undergoing an evolution in its product offering. Polygon Labs, formed in 2023, is responsible for supporting the development of the Polygon ecosystem, with a focus on fast, low-cost blockchain infrastructure for payments.

Polygon is now building the Open Money Stack, an integrated set of services designed to move money instantly and reliably, globally. It combines blockchain settlement on the Polygon network with core payment components like wallets, stablecoin integrations, cross-chain connectivity, and compliance tooling, to keep funds on-chain so they can be used across on-chain financial applications.

To make this work across many different blockchains, Polygon Labs is building AggLayer, a settlement layer meant to help different blockchains connect and exchange value with each other quickly and at low cost, reducing the need for separate, disconnected systems.

Polygon is a listed token with a current fully diluted value of $1.6B. Polygonscan shows more than 6.2 billion total transactions on Polygon. Polygon’s website also points to scale indicators like billions of dollars of stablecoins on the network, millions of transactions per day on average, and monthly payment volume, and describes Polygon as infrastructure that can support “trillions” of value moving through it.

The company was co-founded by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Mihailo Bjelic, and Anurag Arjun, and is currently led by CEO Marc Boiron, who was appointed in 2023.

Historically, in 2021, Polygon acquired zero-knowledge cryptography companies Mir and Hermez for $400M and $250M, respectively, but these are no longer aligned with the company’s Open Money Stack vision.

Transaction Parameters
Polygon Labs is acquiring Coinme for an undisclosed amount. In combination with another acquisition, Sequence, simultaneously announced by Polygon today. The combined acquisition value is around $250M. This marks one of the first examples of a protocol acquiring an operating business. The Coinme transaction is expected to close in Q2 2026.

Architect Partners served as the exclusive financial advisor to Coinme.

Notable comparable transactions include OSL | Banxa for $62M (M&A Alert), Nuvei | Simplex for $250M (M&A Alert), Ripple | Rail for $200M (M&A Alert), Stripe | Bridge for $1.1B (M&A Alert), MoonPay | Iron for $100M (M&A Alert), and MoonPay | Helio for $175M (M&A Alert).

Strategic Rationale
Polygon is acquiring Coinme and Sequence to move from being a settlement rail to owning the full experience of how money comes on-chain, moves on-chain, and settles back into the real world. The combination of Coinme’s licensed payments offering with Sequence’s wallet and payments orchestration stack gives Polygon an end‑to‑end, regulated crypto payments platform that spans physical kiosks, embedded wallets, and cross‑chain routing.

On Day 1, Polygon can take this integrated “crypto‑as‑a‑service” solution to banks, PSPs, neobanks, and fintechs who want compliant, turnkey stablecoin and token payments without building their own licensing, infrastructure, or user experience.

Architect Partners’ Observations
This acquisition(s) underscores a broader inflection point in the blockchain protocol market: technological performance and scalability alone will not win. The integration of real-world rails and the ability to deliver end-to-end value for mainstream users are becoming table stakes. As the market matures, competitive advantage is shifting toward owning the commercialization layer, including regulated fiat access, compliance operations, distribution channels, partner integrations, and strong product integration.

Networks that rely entirely on third-party providers risk commoditization, margin leakage, inconsistent user experience, and strategic dependency, just as stablecoins and tokenized products begin to drive meaningful transaction volume and the corresponding revenue opportunities.
Polygon’s actions show they fully understand the importance of this approach.

Sources
Polygon Press Release
Architect Partner M&A Tracker
PitchBook

Alerts

eToro Acquires Wallet Provider Zengo for $70M

Ryan McCulloch
April 19th, 2026
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Transaction Overview

On April 15, 2026, eToro (NAS: ETOR), a multi-asset online brokerage, announced a definitive agreement to acquire Zengo, a self-custodial crypto wallet provider based in Tel Aviv, for approximately $70 million, paid mostly in cash. This is eToro’s first announced acquisition since its May 2025 IPO.

 

Target: Zengo

Founded in 2018, Zengo is a self-custodial crypto wallet. The wallet uses multi-party computation (MPC) technology instead of a traditional seed phrase, which the company markets as a simpler and more secure alternative to standard self-custody setups. Zengo says no user wallet has been hacked since launch.

 

The core product lets users buy, sell, swap, and stake crypto, hold a broad set of tokens, and access decentralized applications directly from the wallet. Zengo also offers Zengo Pro, a paid tier that adds features including Bitcoin Vaults and an inheritance-style recovery option, and Zengo Business, a team wallet product for SMBs and enterprises.

 

As of the announcement, Zengo reported more than 2 million users across 180+ countries. Prior to this transaction, Zengo had raised approximately $38M in disclosed venture funding, including a $20M Series A led by Insight Partners in April 2021 at approximately $91M post-money, a $10M round in 2023, and a later-stage round in November 2025 with participation from Tether, MoonPay, Elron Ventures, Benson Oak Ventures, Insight Partners, Arieli Group, Anatoly Yakovenko, and McArthur Capital.

 

Key competitors include Magic Labs, MetaMask (Consensys), Phantom, Trust Wallet (Binance), Ledger, Exodus, and Rainbow.

 

Buyer: eToro

Headquartered in Israel, eToro (NAS: ETOR) is a multi-asset online brokerage offering stocks, ETFs, crypto, commodities, currencies, and CFDs, along with social features such as CopyTrader and Smart Portfolios. eToro reports 40M+ registered users across 75 countries and 3.8M funded accounts as of year-end 2025, up 9% year over year.

 

For the full year 2025, eToro reported net revenue of $868M, up 10% year over year, and GAAP Net Income of $216M, up 12% year over year. Assets Under Administration were $18.5B as of December 31, 2025, up 11% year over year. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments were $1.3B at year-end, with no outstanding debt. Approximately 87% of revenue is generated from spread fees on trading activity, with the balance from interest income, subscriptions, and other sources.

 

eToro went public on Nasdaq on May 14, 2025, at an IPO valuation of approximately $5.6B. As of mid-April 2026, its market capitalization was approximately $2.7B. With $1.3B in cash, that implies an EV / LTM net revenue multiple of 1.6x. The company has historically offered custodial crypto trading, with its direct self-custody footprint limited to the eToro Money wallet. Zengo brings a standalone MPC wallet product, an existing user base, and a dedicated engineering team focused on non-custodial infrastructure.

 

Transaction Parameters

eToro has agreed to acquire Zengo for approximately $70 million, paid mostly in cash, subject to customary closing conditions. eToro did not publicly disclose terms; Bloomberg reported the $70 million figure, which is consistent with PitchBook.

 

At $70M, the implied valuation represents approximately 0.77x Zengo’s 2021 Series A post-money valuation of approximately $91M, and approximately 1.9x total disclosed venture funding. No revenue multiple is disclosed.

 

Previous comparable transactions in the wallet and embedded wallet infrastructure category include: Stripe | Privy (not disclosed, Jun. 2025), Consensys | Torus ($50M, Jun. 2025), Gnosis | Headquarters ($15M, May 2025), MoonPay | Iron ($100M, Mar. 2025), and Bitget | BitKeep ($300M, Mar. 2023).

 

Strategic Rationale

eToro frames the acquisition as part of a broader strategy of connecting its centralized trading platform with on-chain infrastructure. Three points stand out:

  1. Support for emerging digital asset use cases, including tokenized assets, prediction markets, and perpetuals, where a non-custodial wallet is typically a prerequisite.
  2. Adding a standalone self-custody product to a platform historically built around custodial trading.
  3. Scaling Zengo’s distribution across eToro’s 40 million registered users, with Zengo continuing to operate as a distinct product.

eToro has deliberately structured the deal so Zengo’s wallet remains outside eToro’s regulated exchange services. Per the announcement, wallet activity, including swaps, staking, and access to decentralized applications, is not offered, managed, or guaranteed by any eToro regulated entity. That keeps the self-custody product outside eToro’s MiCA-licensed perimeter and lets the wallet evolve at DeFi speed.

 

Architect Partners’ Observations
Wallet infrastructure is quietly becoming one of the most acquired categories in crypto. In the last eighteen months, Stripe bought Privy, MoonPay bought Iron, Consensys bought Torus, Gnosis bought Headquarters, and now eToro is buying Zengo. Disclosed valuations range from $15M to $300M.

 

The pattern is consistent: large consumer-facing platforms with distribution but limited on-chain infrastructure  have concluded that the wallet layer is too strategic to rent, and are acquiring wallet layers before competitors lock up the remaining independent assets.

 

The logic is simple. The wallet is the user’s gateway to an on-chain experience. An interface that abstracts the complex custody of key management is mission critical to attract users on chain.   And whoever controls it controls the end-user relationship, the key material, the recovery flow, the compliance posture, and the on-chain data. Partnering that out hands a critical piece of the stack to a third party. What makes the eToro transaction notable is that eToro already had an in-house wallet (eToro Money) and still chose to buy. Stripe, MoonPay, Consensys, and Gnosis reached the same conclusion.

 

Embedded wallet infrastructure, the businesses whose wallets sit inside other companies’ applications, is the highest-leverage version of this category. A single transaction can deliver the technology, a book of enterprise customers, and the distribution that comes with them. Exchanges, brokers, and payment companies that do not yet own this layer should assume the best independent assets will continue to be acquired.

 

Sources

PitchBook, eToro Press Release, eToro Q4/FY 2025 Results, Bloomberg, Zengo