WonderFi To Buy Second Canadian Crypto Exchange For $38 Million
WonderFi Technologies, based in Vancouver, has signed a deal to buy another licensed Canadian cryptocurrency platform, less than a month after acquiring Bitbuy Technologies.
WonderFi, a digital business that enables financial services access via DeFi, aims to continue its expansion in Canada by acquiring the Coinberry crypto exchange for $38 million in WonderFi stock, based on the company’s current share price.
If implemented, the project will consolidate two of Canada’s six registered digital asset trading sites. And, if regulators and shareholders approve the purchase, WonderFi will gain a total of 160 employees and 750,000 customers.
Bitbuy, based in Toronto and acquired for $163 million in cash and stock, became fully regulated in November when the Ontario Securities Commission gave its approval. Coinberry, on the other hand, became an OSC member in August of last year.
WonderFi Takes Over Coinberry
Coinberry was founded in 2017 and services more than 200,000 users, with more than $1 billion in transactions to date. Coinberry bills itself as “the simplest and most secure way” to purchase and sell Bitcoin, XRP, and Bitcoin Cash. Litecoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
Coinberry, which employs 40 people, including software developers, got regulatory approval from the OSC barely eight months ago. WonderFi will add $100 million in assets under custody as a result of this transaction at the end of December 2021.
“What counts is compliant access to crypto, and WonderFi has quickly established itself as a pioneer in Canada,” said Kevin O’Leary, the crypto bull, Shark Tank star and strategic adviser to WonderFi.
More Mergers To Come
In the face of increased regulatory pressure and growing customer acquisition costs as multiple platforms compete for the same customers, WonderFi co-founder and CEO Ben Samaroo anticipates more mergers in Canada’s crypto market — including from WonderFi.
Samaroo stated in an interview:
“Several of these platforms, like Coinberry, have done an outstanding job of expanding their businesses… however, we’re nearing the point where a large number of players are vying for the same users.”
“It’s basically a springboard for us to expand into larger jurisdictions as we get traction in the United States and other major countries,” Samaroo explained.
The transaction, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory clearances, is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2022.
“As the sector matures, consolidation is inevitable,” Coinberry founder and CEO Andrei Poliakov told BetaKit. “We anticipated this would occur, and it has.”
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