MoonPay has acquired Sodot and launched MoonPay Institutional, a new digital assets business aimed at serving banks, asset managers, trading firms, exchanges and other financial institutions entering crypto markets, the company said Wednesday.

The move extends MoonPay beyond its established role as a crypto payments network and fiat-to-crypto gateway into a more comprehensive infrastructure provider for regulated financial firms. The company said Sodot’s technology will form the key management foundation of the new institutional platform, supporting services across wallet infrastructure, custody, on-chain order routing, trade execution, collateral operations and stablecoin settlement.

MoonPay did not disclose financial terms in its announcement. Bloomberg News reported that the all-stock transaction valued Sodot at about $100 million. The acquisition comes as fintech and digital asset companies compete to provide the compliance, custody, payments and security rails that traditional finance firms need before launching blockchain-based products at scale.

Sodot, founded in 2023 by Ido Sofer, Shalev Keren, Matan Hamilis and Elichai Turkel, specializes in self-hosted multiparty computation and trusted execution environment products. Its platform is designed to help institutional asset managers, market makers, custodians and wallet providers manage private keys and API keys without exposing sensitive credentials to third parties.

MoonPay said Sodot has secured more than $50 billion in transactions and protected more than 10 million wallets. Its clients include eToro, BitGo, Flow Traders and Exodus. The company said Sodot’s products have been audited by Trail of Bits, NCC Group and Halborn and that Sodot holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification from EY.

The acquisition brings Sodot’s team, technology and customer relationships into MoonPay. Existing Sodot customers will continue to receive access to products, integrations and support, MoonPay said. The company also said it plans to invest further in Sodot’s Israeli operations, citing the region’s depth in cryptography and cybersecurity.

MoonPay Institutional will be led by Caroline D. Pham, chief executive of Moon Global Markets, MoonPay’s chief legal officer and chief administrative officer, and a former acting chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Pham joined MoonPay after a career spanning law, finance, market structure and digital asset regulation, including prior executive roles at Citigroup.

Her appointment gives the new business a regulatory profile that is likely to matter to its target clients. Banks, asset managers and trading firms evaluating crypto products have generally demanded stronger safeguards around custody, settlement, operational control, transaction monitoring and regulatory accountability than retail crypto platforms historically provided.

MoonPay framed the new unit as a way to reduce fragmentation for institutions that otherwise would need to source separate providers for wallets, custody, trading access, stablecoin infrastructure, collateral management and compliance tools. The company said the platform will be protocol- and venue-agnostic, with products available through direct integration, embedded services or white-label deployments.

The launch also places MoonPay more directly in competition with institutional crypto infrastructure providers that serve banks, brokerages, exchanges, payments companies and asset managers. The market includes custody platforms, stablecoin infrastructure firms, tokenization technology vendors, liquidity aggregators and blockchain settlement providers seeking to bridge traditional finance with digital asset networks.

MoonPay said the new platform will include self-hosted key management, programmable policy controls, low-latency signing, multi-cloud deployment and wallet infrastructure. For regulated clients, those features are central to governance: institutions need to define who can initiate transactions, approve movements, access wallets, manage exchange API keys and respond to operational incidents.

The company also said the unit will offer custody through MoonPay Trust Company, a New York limited purpose trust company operating under oversight of the New York State Department of Financial Services. MoonPay said the custody capability will support certain stablecoins and other tokenized or crypto assets.

Stablecoins are another major pillar of the institutional strategy. MoonPay said its platform will support white-label stablecoin issuance, reserve management and cross-border settlement in more than 120 fiat currencies. The company said institutions will be able to launch and manage their own stablecoins using MoonPay’s infrastructure, with integrations that include PayPal, Paysafe and Deel.

That focus aligns with a broader shift in fintech infrastructure. Stablecoins have moved from crypto-native trading venues toward payments, treasury, remittances and settlement use cases. For institutions, the opportunity is not limited to holding crypto assets; it includes building programmable payment systems, tokenized cash products and faster cross-border settlement tools.

MoonPay’s announcement cited rising institutional interest in DeFi yields, stablecoin settlement and digital asset exposure. The company said stablecoin transaction volume reached $33 trillion in 2025 and that first-quarter 2026 volume exceeded $28 trillion, while stablecoin market capitalization surpassed $317 billion. It also cited research indicating that many institutional asset managers plan to increase digital asset exposure over the next year.

Those figures underscore why infrastructure providers are racing to develop products that meet institutional standards. Asset managers, banks and market makers are increasingly evaluating digital asset strategies, but adoption often depends on whether platforms can satisfy compliance, information security, counterparty-risk and operational due diligence requirements.

MoonPay said its payments network connects to more than 7,500 merchants, wallets and apps, with reach that includes an estimated 100 million users worldwide through integrations. The company said it has more than 30 million customers across 180 countries and supports more than 500 enterprise customers across crypto and fintech.

The Sodot acquisition follows a period of expansion for MoonPay across payments and infrastructure. The company has been building services that connect fiat rails with blockchain-based products, including ramps, trading, commerce and stablecoin infrastructure. MoonPay said it holds a New York BitLicense, a New York limited purpose trust charter, money transmitter licenses across the United States and MiCA authorization in the European Union.

The regulatory footprint is likely to be important as MoonPay pitches institutional clients. Financial firms entering digital assets typically need vendors that can operate across jurisdictions while handling customer onboarding, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, custody controls and reporting obligations. The ability to embed compliance tools into the full transaction flow may become a differentiator as tokenized payments and assets become more widely adopted.

The acquisition also gives MoonPay more control over a critical layer of institutional crypto operations: key management. In digital asset markets, private keys and exchange API keys are operationally equivalent to control over funds, trading access and settlement workflows. Failures in key governance can create direct financial losses, regulatory issues and reputational damage.

Sodot’s pitch is that institutions can retain sovereign control over sensitive keys while using modern cryptographic security architecture. Its self-hosted approach may appeal to clients that do not want to rely entirely on third-party custody for every digital asset workflow, particularly trading firms and market makers that require speed, policy control and multi-venue connectivity.

For MoonPay, the acquisition helps broaden its revenue opportunity from retail transaction flows to institutional software and infrastructure. Consumer crypto activity can be cyclical and highly sensitive to market prices. Institutional infrastructure, by contrast, can generate recurring enterprise relationships tied to custody, settlement, issuance, compliance and platform integrations.

Still, the strategy carries execution risk. MoonPay will need to integrate Sodot’s technology and team while convincing regulated financial firms that a company best known for crypto payments can support mission-critical institutional operations. It will also need to compete with established custody providers, blockchain infrastructure companies and bank-backed digital asset platforms.

The timing may be favorable. Financial institutions are under pressure to define digital asset strategies as stablecoins, tokenized funds and blockchain settlement tools gain traction. Boards and investors are increasingly asking whether banks, asset managers and payments companies can participate without assuming unmanaged operational or regulatory risk.

MoonPay’s answer is to package payments, custody, key management, stablecoin infrastructure, compliance tooling and on-chain connectivity into one platform. If the company can execute, MoonPay Institutional could shift its position in fintech from a consumer-facing crypto access provider to a broader enterprise infrastructure vendor for digital finance.

The acquisition of Sodot is therefore more than an add-on deal. It is a bet that the next phase of crypto adoption will be driven less by retail speculation and more by institutions demanding secure, compliant and interoperable rails for tokenized markets, stablecoin payments and digital asset operations.