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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

Exodus to Acquire Baanx for $175M

Ryan McCulloch
November 26th, 2025
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Transaction Overview

On November 24, 2025, Exodus announced a definitive agreement to acquire W3C Corp, the parent of Baanx.com Ltd, Baanx US Corp, and Monavate, for total consideration of $175M. The transaction is expected to close in early 2026, subject to customary regulatory approvals in the U.S., UK, and EU.

 

Target: Baanx

Baanx is a UK‑based crypto payments and digital banking infrastructure provider focused on enabling users to buy, spend, and borrow against digital assets via virtual and physical payment cards. The company operates under an Electronic Money Institution license from the UK Financial Conduct Authority and supports programs across the UK, EU, and U.S., providing compliant rails for crypto‑linked spend at millions of merchant locations.​

 

Baanx offers API‑driven card issuing, on‑chain spending features, and credit products for wallets, exchanges, and Web3 applications, including the Exodus Card program launched earlier in 2025. It has also partnered with major Web3 and hardware wallet brands such as MetaMask and Ledger, positioning Baanx as a preferred bridge between self‑custody environments and traditional card networks.

 

The company has raised a total of $40M in equity financing over five rounds at a last post-money valuation of $97M on their Feb 2023 raise. Previous investors include Chiron Investment Management, Ledger, Blockchain Founders Fund, BlocTech Investment Group, BnkToTheFuture, British Business Bank, Monsas, Penu Investments, Primalnvest Capital Management, Tezos, and Warisan Investment Partners.

 

Baanx competes with other crypto card and payments platforms that bridge digital assets into everyday spend, including consumer‑facing programs such as Crypto.com Visa Card, Coinbase Card, Binance Card, Nexo Card, BitPay Card, and Revolut’s crypto‑enabled debit offering

 

Buyer: Exodus

Exodus Movement (NYSE American) is a U.S.-listed, self‑custodial crypto wallet offering integrated swapping (XO Swap) to a user base exceeding 6 million as of 2025. The company is currently building towards becoming a full‑stack crypto payments company via the acquisition of Grateful and now Baanx. 

 

As of November 26, 2025, Exodus has a market capitalization of $505M cash and crypto of $315M, and an enterprise value of $190M. Their LTM revenue was $127M, implying an EV / LTM revenue multiple of 1.5x. This is very modest relative to their peers of Coinbase and Gemini who trade at 6.6x and 9.0x EV / LTM revenue, respectively.

 

The day following the announcement, Exodus stock traded up about 5% upon open, indicating a positive market reaction to the acquisition, and within two days the stock had increased 17%.  

 

By acquiring Baanx, Exodus expects to integrate issuing, processing, and compliance infrastructure directly into both its consumer wallet and enterprise products, including programmable payout capabilities for XO Swap clients. This will allow Exodus to issue branded payment cards on Visa, Mastercard, and Discover, expand geographic coverage across the U.S., UK, and EU, and support a wider range of assets including payment‑focused stablecoins.

 

Transaction Parameters

Exodus has agreed to acquire W3C Corp, the parent of Baanx and Monavate, for total consideration of approximately $175M, payable in cash and funded through a combination of Exodus’s balance‑sheet liquidity and a Bitcoin‑backed credit facility arranged with Galaxy Digital. 

 

Ahead of signing, Exodus extended a $58.8M loan to W3C to support its earlier acquisitions of Baanx and Monavate and may provide up to an additional $10M of working capital, with the remainder of the purchase price to be settled at closing. 

 

At Exodus’s current share price, the transaction value represents roughly 40% of the company’s equity market capitalization and is broadly in line with its implied enterprise value, making the deal very significant to Exodus. The acquisition is expected to close in early 2026, subject to customary regulatory and closing conditions across the U.S., UK, and EU.

 

Comparable previous transactions include: Rail | Ripple (M&A Alert), First Digital | Fireblocks (M&A Alert), Diem | Silvergate (M&A Alert), Alloyx | Solowin (M&A Alert), Iron | Moonpay (M&A Alert), Bridge | Stripe (M&A Alert).

 

Strategic Rationale

Owning Baanx’s card and payments stack transforms Exodus from a partner‑dependent wallet into a regulated payments company. Baanx’s EMI license, multi‑region regulatory footprint, and card‑network connectivity are difficult‑to‑replicate assets that accelerate Exodus’s time‑to‑market in regulated payments.

 

The combined platform will diversify Exodus’ revenues and enable them to monetize through interchange, FX, and enterprise payment services. They are now enabling everyday stablecoin and crypto spending from a self‑custodial environment. Exodus has been promising M&A to shareholders, and they are now proving their willingness to do real deals.

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

It should come as no surprise that payments is the word of the year for crypto in 2025. The craze was sparked by Stripe’s 1.1 billion dollar acquisition of Bridge, announced in late 2024. Since then, according to Architect Partners data, there have been over 30 acquisitions in crypto payments worth well over a billion dollars this year, and this wave of consolidation is still building rather than slowing. 

 

Exodus’ acquisition of Baanx is yet another example of this. Building these products and applying for the licensing takes a significant amount of time. Many are choosing to acquire and rapidly accelerate their time into the market, albeit at a very high cost due to these crypto payment companies being highly desired. 

 

Sources 

Exodus Press Release, PitchBook