MoonPay has acquired the crypto infrastructure startup Glide, integrating Glide’s deposit and routing technology, the companies said in a joint announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday.
MoonPay, a financial technology platform that provides fiat-to-crypto payment services, said the deal is part of MoonPay’s broader effort to become a digital asset infrastructure provider, adding capabilities beyond its original crypto payments business.
Glide was founded in 2023 by Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong, former members of the team behind Robinhood Wallet. The company was founded to help applications accept deposits from different tokens, wallets, exchanges and payment sources. Glide supports more than 100 tokens across 30 blockchain networks, according to the platform’s documentation.
Glide aims to remove friction from crypto deposits
Soni and Tong founded Glide to solve recurring problem they observed while working with Web3 consumer startups, where users struggled to fund their wallets, Soni told Cointelegraph.
“Funds sat on the wrong chain, in the wrong token, on an exchange, or on a card, and every deposit meant bridges, swaps, and drop-offs,” he said.
The Glide co-founders met at Robinhood, where they worked together on Robinhood Wallet. “We got into Y Combinator with a plan to build wallet infrastructure for Web3 consumer startups, but working with those startups showed us that users struggled to get money into their wallets,” Soni said.
Qinyu Tong (left) and Tushar Soni. Source: Y Combinator
Glide eventually shifted its focus from wallet infrastructure to building a unified deposit flow that allows users to fund wallets from different chains, tokens, wallets, exchanges or cards without manually completing bridges and swaps.
MoonPay pushes deeper into digital asset infrastructure
Following the acquisition, Glide’s technology will be integrated into MoonPay Deposits, a product already used by applications including Wallet in Telegram, Moonshot and Paysafe.
MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright told Cointelegraph the acquisition fits into the company’s broader infrastructure strategy, following recent deals for security, trading and accounting capabilities.
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“Every acquisition this year has added a layer of the infrastructure that businesses and their users need to operate with digital assets: moving money, securing it, trading it, accounting for it,” Soto-Wright said.
He added that Glide addresses one of the biggest pain points in crypto transfers: users losing funds because they send the wrong token on the wrong chain, predicting that future blockchain-based platforms will require infrastructure that makes those complexities invisible.
MoonPay has not disclosed the financial terms of the Glide acquisition.
The deal marks MoonPay’s sixth acquisition announcement of 2026, as the company continues expanding its digital asset infrastructure stack through acquisitions including Sodot, Decent and DFlow, Entendre and Dawn Labs.
Its investors include Thrive Capital, Paradigm, Valhalla Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Coatue, according to startup data platform Tracxn.
Former acting chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Caroline Pham, was named chief legal officer and chief administrative officer late last year.
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The Bigger Pattern
Soto-Wright’s comment about “moving money, securing it, trading it, accounting for it” isn’t just marketing language — it maps almost exactly onto MoonPay’s acquisition list for the year. The company is deliberately building out a full-stack digital asset infrastructure business rather than staying a pure fiat-to-crypto ramp, and Soto-Wright predicted that future blockchain-based platforms will increasingly need infrastructure that makes cross-chain complexity invisible to end users entirely — exactly the gap Glide was built to close.
MoonPay’s backers include Tiger Global Management, Coatue, and a notable roster of celebrity investors including Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton, following a $555 million Series A round. The company also brought on Caroline Pham, former acting chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as chief legal officer and chief administrative officer late last year — a hire that fits a broader industry trend of crypto infrastructure firms recruiting senior former regulators as they scale.
FAQ
What does Glide’s technology actually do?
It lets crypto applications accept deposits from any token, wallet, exchange, or card without requiring users to manually bridge or swap assets between blockchains settling through self-custodial escrow smart contracts.
How much did MoonPay pay for Glide?
The financial terms were not disclosed; the transaction was structured as an all-equity deal.
How many acquisitions has MoonPay made in 2026?
The Glide deal is MoonPay’s sixth announced acquisition of 2026, part of a broader strategy to build a full-stack digital asset infrastructure business covering deposits, custody, trading, and accounting.
