21. MoonPay
Moonpay provides cryptocurrency services to over 30 million people spanning 180 countries and moving over $8 billion in crypto volume including bitcoin.
Founders: Ivan Soto-Wright (CEO), Victor Faramond
Launched: 2019
Headquarters: New York City
Funding: $555 million
Valuation: $3.4 billion
Key Technologies: Blockchain, decentralized finance (DeFi), Web3
Industry: Fintech
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 list: 1 (No. 44 in 2022)
In 2019, MoonPay founders Ivan Soto-Wright and Victor Faramond imagined the infrastructure to allow anyone with a credit card to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Today, the fintech company provides that service and more to over 30 million people spanning 180 countries and handling over $8 billion in crypto.
Its software allows users to buy and sell digital assets using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers or mobile wallets. It also sells its technology to other businesses, allowing them to accept cryptocurrency as payment.
MoonPay has thrived despite the volatility of digital assets, growing its customer base by over 10 million users in the last year. The Trump administration's support for the crypto industry has given it another boost, with a jump of over 1 million new users in January and legislation pending on Capitol Hill that the industry has had a major say in crafting.
Within the first months of Trump's second term, MoonPay also played a prominent role in one of the biggest, if also most controversial, crypto headlines, serving as the main on-ramp for $TRUMP, the president's meme coin. Sales for the coin were so high at the time that it temporarily overwhelmed the platform, and crypto peer companies Galaxy and Ripple loaned MoonPay a total of $160 million to meet user demand.
Earlier this month, Moonpay received its NY BitLicense approval, officially making the service available to users in all 50 states. This license, considered one of the most difficult to obtain, puts MoonPay among only 34 other holders including Coinbase, Ripple and Robinhood.
In November, the company launched MoonPay Balance, which allows users to hold fiat currencies in their accounts and more easily facilitate trades in the crypto ecosystem. Users in the U.S., EU and U.K. can pre-fund their Bitcoin.com or MoonPay app with their local currency and trade with instant payments — so far, with near 100% approval rates and zero fees.
MoonPay has made several deals this year to push further into the enterprise market. It recently acquired Helio, a self-service crypto checkout app providing businesses with the tools to accept cryptocurrencies like SOL, ETH and BTC. Helio has partnered with several companies including Shopify, PayPal and Discord, and has handled over $1.5 billion in transactions.
A month after the Helio deal, its expansion within the enterprise market continued when MoonPay acquired stablecoin infrastructure startup Iron.
"We think everyone is going to have a digital currency wallet, whether it's inside of a bank account or independently. And we build a backwards compatibility to the existing financial system," Soto-Wright told CNBC's "Squawk Box" at the time of the deal. "Iron's technology positions MoonPay to become the definitive infrastructure provider for enterprise stablecoin solutions," he said.
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This story originally appeared on: CNBC - Author:Sara Lindsay
