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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 M&A Snapshot

Week of July 22 – July 28

Eric F. Risley
July 28, 2024
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A blockchain is the banking system.

 

That statement is far too simplistic but perhaps serves as a useful metaphor.  Simply put the most basic function of the banking system is to accurately maintain a record of fiat money.  Let’s call it, the source of truth.   Pretty simple if it is recorded as a record in a single bank’s database, far more complex when that fiat is spent, transferred or invested.  Today there are 4,577 just in the United States and the number of financial institutions that must maintain a record of fiat balances are many tens of thousands globally.  

 

The implications of a single, globally accepted source of truth is profound.  It will take decades to unwrap the impacts and, just like the early Internet in the early 2000’s, we are only now beginning to piece together the myriad of implications and new use cases.

 

Another, just as important function of the global banking system, is to allocate capital from those with “excess capital” to those who need capital.  Again, simply put, a bank takes deposits and loans (“invests”) those deposits.  Systems like Ethereum, Solana and many others are designed to allow that function to be built upon their respective blockchains.  This specific function has been the most prolific use case in crypto to-date showing itself in a broad variety of ways.  These include the infamous creation of new “investable” tokens to support a myriad of new blockchains and protocols to more prosaic peer to peer lending platforms.

 

This topic comes up this week with Galaxy Digital’s acquisition of CryptoManufakur’s assets.  Fundamentally the running of a blockchain is a collective activity.  With proof of work blockchains like Bitcoin, it’s mining, which theoretically can be done with a simple, relatively low-cost computer any anyone.  With blockchains based on staking, it’s simply another way to run a computer to track the blockchain with a different mechanism to ensure rewards and penalties for acting as an honest participant.  Getting back to the initial metaphor, in essence, miners and staking node operators represent the new banking system being built as we speak.