TL;DR
- MoonPay has signed a definitive agreement to acquire private-markets infrastructure company North Capital.
- North Capital brings registered broker-dealers, an alternative trading system, transfer-agent operations and investment-advisory infrastructure.
- The acquisition has been agreed but has not yet closed.
MoonPay is making a much bigger move into regulated securities infrastructure.
The crypto payments company has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire North Capital Investment Technology, a private-markets platform that combines software with regulated brokerage and trading businesses.
The deal gives MoonPay something it would take years to build from scratch: an existing regulatory stack for private and tokenized securities.
North Capital Brings More Than An API
North Capital supports capital raising, asset management, clearing, custody and secondary trading for exempt securities.
Its infrastructure includes investor onboarding, transaction processing, subscription escrow and PPEX, a registered alternative trading system.
MoonPay says the platform has supported more than $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transaction volume, while PPEX lists more than 1,250 approved assets for secondary trading.
The acquisition also brings North Capital’s SEC-registered broker-dealers, transfer agent and investment adviser into the wider MoonPay group once the transaction closes.
That is the strategic value.
MoonPay already has infrastructure for moving between fiat currencies, stablecoins and crypto assets.
North Capital adds the regulated machinery required for private securities.
Tokenized Assets Need Traditional Market Plumbing Too
Tokenization can make securities easier to issue, transfer and settle.
It does not remove the need for broker-dealers, transfer agents, investor checks or regulated trading venues.
That has become one of the biggest constraints around real-world assets.
A company can put ownership records onchain relatively easily.
Building the legal and operational stack around those records is much harder.
MoonPay is effectively buying that layer rather than assembling it piece by piece.
The transaction remains subject to closing conditions, so North Capital is not yet a MoonPay subsidiary.
But the intent is clear.
MoonPay wants to sit somewhere between conventional capital markets and crypto infrastructure, allowing issuers and investors to move across fiat, digital assets and private securities through a more integrated platform.
If tokenized securities become a meaningful part of financial markets, the companies controlling those regulated rails could be as important as the blockchains carrying the tokens themselves.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
