MoonPay has acquired Israeli crypto security startup Sodot in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $100 million, the company confirmed, with the transaction forming the foundation of a new business division aimed squarely at large financial institutions. The deal was announced by Sodot on its official blog, marking a significant step in MoonPay’s pivot from consumer-facing payments toward enterprise-grade crypto infrastructure.
Bloomberg reported the deal citing sources familiar with the acquisition, describing it as a stock transaction placing Sodot’s valuation at around $100 million.
The new division, called MoonPay Institutional, will target banks, asset managers, and other regulated financial entities seeking structured access to digital asset markets.
Caroline Pham Takes the Helm of MoonPay Institutional
Leading the new institutional unit is Caroline D. Pham, who joined MoonPay in December 2025 as chief legal officer and chief administrative officer.
Pham previously served as acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, bringing rare regulatory credibility to a division that will deal directly with compliance-conscious financial firms.
Her appointment signals MoonPay’s intent to engage with the institutional market through a regulatory lens rather than simply a technology one.
In a crypto landscape where institutional adoption remains entangled with compliance requirements, having a former top derivatives regulator leading the charge is a calculated strategic move.
MoonPay Institutional is designed to offer a suite of services spanning trading, tokenized securities, payments, wallet management, and stablecoin issuance. Sodot’s technology will sit at the core of this offering, functioning as the key management infrastructure layer across all institutional products.
Why Sodot's MPC Technology Is Central to the Deal
Sodot’s core product is a self-hosted multi-party computation platform, commonly referred to as MPC infrastructure, which allows institutions to retain granular control over how digital assets are moved, who must authorize transactions, and how automated systems interact with custody workflows.
MPC technology distributes cryptographic key management across multiple parties, meaning no single point of failure or compromise can expose an institution’s entire asset base.
For banks and asset managers entering crypto, this level of control is not optional. Regulatory frameworks governing custody and asset management demand audit trails, access controls, and safeguards that traditional crypto wallets simply cannot provide.
Sodot’s architecture was built from the ground up to address exactly these requirements, making it a natural fit for MoonPay’s institutional ambitions.
The acquisition also accelerates MoonPay’s ability to support tokenized asset workflows, a market that has seen growing institutional interest as major financial firms explore blockchain-based representations of traditional securities, treasury instruments, and real-world assets.
With Sodot embedded into the institutional unit, MoonPay gains the technical infrastructure to manage the key lifecycle of tokenized instruments in a compliant, auditable manner.
MoonPay currently serves nearly 30 million customers globally and provides backend infrastructure to over 500 firms across the decentralized economy. The company has been actively reshaping its business profile beyond consumer crypto purchases.
Over the past year, it acquired Iron, a stablecoin platform, and Helio, a crypto checkout firm, to deepen its footprint in enterprise infrastructure. The Sodot deal extends that trajectory by adding institutional-grade security and key management to its growing stack.
The broader institutional crypto market has accelerated considerably through 2025 and into 2026, with regulated entities under increasing pressure to offer digital asset services as client demand grows.
Custody infrastructure, compliance tooling, and key management are now primary bottlenecks rather than simply technical concerns. MoonPay’s move to acquire rather than build this layer reflects the pace at which institutions expect production-ready systems, not experimental pilots.
Stablecoin issuance, one of the products MoonPay Institutional plans to offer, has become a competitive frontier for financial institutions following clearer regulatory guidance in several jurisdictions.
Banks exploring proprietary stablecoins or tokenized deposit programs require exactly the kind of programmable key management controls that Sodot provides, reinforcing the strategic logic of the acquisition beyond just custody or payments.
MoonPay has not disclosed a timeline for the full launch of MoonPay Institutional’s product suite, but the company’s rapid acquisition pace and Caroline Pham’s background suggest the division will be oriented toward regulatory engagement from day one rather than retrofitting compliance after the fact.
Not Financial Advice: This article is for informational purposes only. Crypto investments are highly volatile. Always do your own research.
