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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

OSL Group Acquires Banxa Holdings (TSX.V: BNXA) for CAD $1.55, approximately $62M USD

John Kennick
June 29th, 2025
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Transaction Overview

On June 27th, OSL Group (HKEX: 863.HK), a crypto exchange headquartered in Hong Kong, has acquired Banxa Holdings (TSXV: BNXA), a leading fiat-to-crypto payments provider, for CAD $1.55 per share in cash, a total transaction value of USD $62M. The deal represents an 80% premium over Banxa’s 30-day VWAP and nearly 5x the stock’s price just nine months ago, providing real value to shareholders.

 

Target: Banxa Holdings

Banxa facilitates the conversion of fiat money into a variety of crypto assets and back again, effectively bridging between traditional financial systems and crypto. Banxa delivers these capabilities to crypto exchanges, crypto wallets, and a wide variety of Web3 dApps located across the globe, allowing consumers from over 150 countries access to these products and services.

 

They also offer a fiat-to-NFT checkout for marketplaces and a developer toolkit that bundles KYC, payments, and compliance infrastructure for Web3 applications.

 

The company’s key competitive moat is its global regulatory footprint. It holds licenses in multiple major jurisdictions, including 37 U.S. Money Transmitter Licenses (MTLs), an Australian digital currency exchange license, a Canadian Money Services Business (MSB) license, a Lithuanian digital asset license, a Dutch crypto services license, and a UK crypto asset service provider registration.

 

Top competitors for Banxa are other crypto on / off ramp providers like Moonpay, Transak, Ramp Networks, Xanpool, and ZeroHash. All of these groups are very well-financed private companies.

 

Banxa was founded in 2014 by Domenic Carosa and the current Co-CEO, Holger Arians. The company went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange on January 6th, 2021, and was the first publicly traded payment service provider in digital assets. Top shareholders include Domenic Carosa (Founder), Antanas Guoga (Board Chairman), Zafer Qureshi (Co-CEO), and Holger Arians (Co-Founder & Co-CEO). 

 

Buyer: OSL Group

OSL Group (HKEX: 863.HK) is a Hong Kong-based, SFC-licensed crypto exchange that offers trading, insured custody, and white-label crypto payments infrastructure for institutional and retail clients, globally.

 

OSL’s business primarily consists of OTC trading, a request-for-quote platform, an exchange, and its custody business. Supplemental to that, they have white-label exchange and broker technologies enabled by APIs. The company is planning to roll out additional product lines like derivatives trading, staking, off-exchange settlement, structured crypto products, and crypto payment services (including onramp, offramp). 

 

OSL Group has shown significant growth. Revenue has increased from approximately $9M in 2022 to $48.3M in 2024, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 130%. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, revenue grew 78.6% year-over-year. The business also moved from a net loss in 2023 to a net profit of $7.1 million in 2024, reflecting a 15% net profit margin. In addition, OSL recorded $12.9B in transaction volume and $644 million in assets under custody. The company’s market capitalization as of Jun 26th, 2025, stands at $1.1B USD, and its enterprise value is around $1.04B. Based on LTM revenue of $48M USD, OSL Group has an LTM EV / Revenue multiple of 21.9x.

 

Transaction Parameters

OSL Group acquired Banxa for CAD $1.55, for a total consideration of CAD $85.2M in all cash, representing a premium of 80.2% from the 30-day volume-weighted average trading price of shares ending on June 25th, 2025. Banxa currently has an LTM Gross Profit, its best proxy for revenue, of $17.9M, placing this transaction at a 3.6x EV / Revenue multiple. While this company traded at a relatively low multiple of revenue, it was within the top 5% of take privates based on the 80% premium paid. Overall it was a great outcome for shareholders.

 

Following the announcement of the transaction, Banxa’s stock rose 15.3%, to CAD $1.20, while OSL Group’s stock remained flat with a 0.14% decline. 

 

Previous comparable transactions include: Helio | Moonpay ($175M, M&A Alert here), PayPal | Curv ($200M, M&A Alert here), Simplex | Nuvei ($250M, M&A Alert here), and Voyager Digital | Coinify ($85M, M&A Alert here).

 

Strategic Rationale

 

Why Banxa?

In a crowded field of fiat-to-crypto on/off-ramp providers, OSL selected Banxa for its unmatched regulatory license coverage, strong conversion performance, deep relationships with banks, payment processors, and compliance partners, its ability to accelerate the rollout of OSL Pay, and a compelling relative valuation.

 

Bridges Fiat-to-Crypto Payments For OSL’s Pay Platform

Banxa enables seamless crypto-to-fiat currency conversion through API-integrated technology used by exchanges, wallets, NFT platforms, and Web3 applications. This will serve as a core foundation for OSL Pay, OSL’s strategic initiative to integrate digital assets into traditional financial systems.

 

Accelerating Global Regulatory Reach

Banxa’s portfolio of licenses enables OSL to operate in key jurisdictions. This includes 37 U.S. Money Transmitter Licenses, which grant OSL an entry into the U.S. market. Additional licenses across Europe, Canada, and Australia support broader international expansion.

 

Deep Payment Relationships

Banxa’s payments network and trusted relationships with banks, payment processors, and compliance providers give OSL the ability to scale a regulated digital asset platform across both institutional and retail markets. 

 

Architect Partners’ Observations

This deal illustrates four themes we see defining digital asset M&A:

 

  1. Regulation is a strategy
    Companies are no longer buying tech — they’re buying market access. Banxa’s licenses represent a regulatory moat that is difficult to replicate, particularly for non-Western acquirers.

 

  1. Fiat ramps are the next API economy
    “On/off ramps” sound technical, but the real story is their business value: enabling the next billion users to pay, invest, or interact with digital assets as easily as fiat-based e-commerce.

 

  1. Public buyers have the edge in crypto consolidation
    OSL’s profitability, exchange listing, and clarity with regulators enable it to move decisively. As the industry matures, we expect public players to be increasingly active consolidators.

 

  1. The stablecoin boom requires reliable fiat gateways

With the meteoric rise of stablecoins as the backbone of digital commerce and cross-border payments, fiat on-off ramps have become critical infrastructure. They are the connection between real-world money and stablecoin utility, powering remittances, trading, savings, and everyday commerce. Banxa is ideally positioned at this junction.

 

Why It Resonates With the Market
This isn’t just another crypto acquisition. It’s a strategic move into the core financial plumbing of the future, enabling compliant, global payments across a fragmented regulatory landscape.

 

The transaction reflects a premium outcome for Banxa shareholders despite recent financial losses, signaling OSL’s strong belief in the long-term value of regulated infrastructure. 

 

We believe this transaction sets a precedent for future cross-border digital asset M&A where regulatory positioning, not just revenue, defines value.

 

Sources 

PitchBook, Banxa Press Release, OSL Announcement