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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

Uncategorized

FalconX Acquires Arbelos Markets for an Undisclosed Amount

Michael Klena
January 3rd, 2025
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Transaction Overview

On January 3, 2025, FalconX, a crypto prime brokerage firm, announced its acquisition of Arbelos Markets, a crypto-focused trading firm that provides principal liquidity across the crypto derivatives market, for an undisclosed valuation

 

Target: Arbelos Market

Arbelos Markets, established in 2023, specializes in providing liquidity solutions for cryptocurrency derivatives markets. The company offers a range of services, including spot trading, options, and futures contracts. Additionally, it operates a bilateral trading platform and provides advisory services focused on cryptocurrency hedging and yield optimization strategies.

 

Since its inception, Arbelos Markets has been delivering derivatives trading across both exchange-traded and bilateral markets. The firm has consistently maintained its position as a global liquidity provider for large options blocks by facilitating access to highly liquid trading opportunities across crypto-native platforms, traditional financial venues, and on-chain protocols.

 

Founded in 2023 by Joshua Lim and Shiliang Tang and headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, the company previously raised $56 million in seed funding, with $28 million coming from debt. Dragonfly Capital led the round, with participation from FalconX, Paxos, Deribit, StarkWare, Immutable, Chorus One, P2 Ventures, Circle Ventures, Room40 Ventures, Selini Capital, and Breed VC.

 

Buyer: FalconX

FalconX is a digital asset prime brokerage providing trading, financing, and technology solutions to institutional clients. Its offerings include: 1) FalconX 360, an end-to-end platform supporting the trade lifecycle, 2) derivatives products, 3) financing solutions, and 4) FX services for fiat and crypto-fiat pairs. 

 

FalconX Bravo, an affiliate of FalconX, became the first CFTC-registered swap dealer focused exclusively on cryptocurrency derivatives.

 

As of July 1, 2024, FalconX had executed over $1.5 trillion in trading volume, served more than 600 institutional clients, and provided access to 400+ tokens. In early 2024, the company facilitated over 30% of total BTC creation purchases for ETF sponsors on their inaugural trading day.

 

Founded in 2018 by Prabhakar Reddy and Raghu Yarlagadda and headquartered in San Mateo, California, FalconX employs over 380 people across offices in New York City, San Francisco, London, Malta, Bangalore, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The company has raised $477 million across eight funding rounds, with backing from B Capital, Altimeter Capital, Accel, Tiger Global, and American Express Ventures, among others. FalconX was last valued at $8 billion in 2022.

 

Transaction Parameters

FalconX closed on the acquisition of Arbelos Market for an undisclosed amount through a mix of cash and stock.

 

Previous comparable transactions include: Stillman Digital | DeFi Technologies, Flovtec | STS Digital, CTF Capital | Borderless Capital, FairX | Coinbase, ErisX | CBOE

 

Strategic Rationale

This acquisition strengthens FalconX’s position as a leading player in institutional trading facilitation. By acquiring a block-trading and OTC derivatives market liquidity provider, FalconX is expanding the range of services available to its existing clients while bringing more of the trading cycle in-house. Moving operations in-house not only allows FalconX to capture an increased share of trade revenues but also ensures that client needs are consistently met.

 

Through this acquisition, FalconX enhances its OTC offerings, complementing its regulated services. The race for leadership in derivatives is intensifying, with several players aggressively expanding in this product segment. FalconX is broadening its product suite to position itself among the leading contenders in the market.

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

This is a logical deal, and we expect more of these to come due to several factors. 

 

Derivatives are a higher-margin product than spot trading, so firms will look to expand their offerings as trading fees are compressed. A similar pattern occurred in U.S. equity trading once it became commoditized in the early 2000s—firms pushed to expand their higher-margin derivatives offerings, often through acquisitions.

 

There is more supply as several newly launched crypto derivatives firms, like Arbelos, D2X, and One Trading, have entered the market. It’s a unique point in time where there is no dominant player preventing others from launching and finding traction.

 

There is growing demand as regulatory changes (e.g., ETF approvals) and (optimistically) upcoming crypto-friendly frameworks have increased institutional trading. Increasing demand means larger firms can now act more aggressively to acquire and feel confident they will not fall into the crosshairs of regulators while expanding their product offerings.

 

There are precedents. Coinbase bought FairX in 2022 (now Coinbase Derivatives), and CBOE acquired ErisX in 2021 (which they wrote down). Timing was a bit early on those deals due to the previously unseen regulatory changes, but we are now hearing that the timing looks more favorable.

 

Sources 

PitchBook, PR Newswire, FalconX