acquisition

Bitcoin mining company and AI infrastructure company IREN announced that it has acquired the creative and media agency Awaken, which focuses on content strategy and brand building for high-growth companies.According to the announcement, some core members of Awaken will join IREN, including Awaken founder and CEO Chris Parker, who will be responsible for IREN's overall branding and marketing strategy.IREN co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts stated that as the company continues to expand into new markets and customer bases, the importance of brand awareness and user engagement is increasing. The Awaken team has long been a trusted partner of IREN, and internalizing these capabilities is a natural step in the company's expansion process.

According to Bloomberg, Standard Chartered Bank will acquire the cryptocurrency custody business of its holding subsidiary Zodia Custody, and its non-binding acquisition offer has been accepted by other shareholders and noteholders of Zodia Custody. Margaret Harwood-Jones, Global Head of Financing and Securities Services at Standard Chartered Bank, stated that this merger will pave the way for Standard Chartered to launch cryptocurrency custody services in new markets such as the UK and Australia.After the acquisition is completed, Zodia Custody's infrastructure business will continue to operate as an independent software-as-a-service company, renamed Zodia Solutions, led by current CEO Julian Sawyer, with Standard Chartered's venture capital division holding a majority stake in Zodia Solutions. Existing shareholders of Zodia Custody include Northern Trust, Emirates NBD, National Australia Bank, and SBI Holdings, and discussions are ongoing regarding whether these parties will continue to hold shares in Zodia Solutions.

According to iNews24, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea is reviewing whether Hana Bank's acquisition of Dunamu shares violates the "separation of finance and virtual assets" regulatory rules. The virtual assets department of the Financial Services Commission stated that Hana Bank indirectly holds shares in Dunamu through its acquisition of Kakao Investment shares, which is essentially an investment in a virtual asset exchange and will be examined under the same standards.Since 2017, the South Korean government has prohibited financial institutions from holding, purchasing virtual assets, or making equity investments through administrative guidance. If a violation occurs, Hana Bank may not be able to complete the transaction. Future Asset Consulting is advancing the acquisition of Kobit's operating rights, and Korea Investment & Securities is also taking a cautious approach. Hana Bank previously announced the acquisition of a 6.55% stake in Dunamu but did not consult with the authorities beforehand.Currently, the "separation of finance and virtual assets" regulation has not yet been codified into law, and it is uncertain whether related provisions will be included in the digital asset bill. Legislative discussions may advance after the National Assembly reconvenes in September at the earliest.

According to the Korea Herald, Korea Investment & Securities is jointly promoting a plan with OKX to acquire approximately 20% of Coinone's shares, with both parties planning to acquire about 20%, primarily through the issuance of new shares. This investment is mainly financial and is expected not to involve a change in management rights. However, there are opinions in the industry that OKX may seek to participate in management and gain substantial influence in the future, which would make it the second case of a large foreign exchange attempting to control the management rights of a Korean original currency exchange after Binance's acquisition of Gopax.Currently, the main shareholders of Coinone are: The One Group holds 34.30%, Com2uS Holdings holds 21.95%, founder and CEO Cha Myung-hoon holds 19.14%, and Com2uS Plus holds 16.47%.

General Tensor announced the completion of its acquisition of Backprop Finance, a subsidiary of Tensorplex Labs, which is one of the largest decentralized trading platforms by trading volume in the Bittensor ecosystem. After the transaction is completed, General Tensor will cover about one-third of the trading volume on the Bittensor network.Previously, General Tensor had raised a total of $5 million through Pre-Seed and Seed rounds, with investors including Digital Currency Group (DCG), Lvna Capital, and Good Morning Holdings, which is led by Lok Lee and supported by Goldman Sachs. Backprop Finance currently mainly serves the trading of Bittensor Dynamic TAO (dTAO) subnet Alpha tokens, providing token exchange and subnet screening.

According to The Information, Anthropic is in advanced negotiations to acquire the developer tools startup Stainless, with a deal amount of at least $300 million. Stainless's development tools have been adopted by OpenAI and Google.

According to CoinDesk, wallet service provider Exodus Movement (EXOD) sold approximately $73.2 million in crypto assets in the first quarter, during which its Bitcoin holdings decreased by 1,076 coins, a decline of about 63%, leaving only 628 BTC. The fair value of its assets dropped from $149.2 million to $42.8 million.During the same period, it added 5,068 SOL, increasing its total holdings to 17,541 SOL. The company stated that the related cash-out was mainly used for the acquisition of the W3C payment business and to pay off maturing consideration, and it has converted over $70 million into dollar reserves, raising its cash, cash equivalents, and stablecoin balance from $5.2 million to $74.4 million. Affected by the impairment and disposal of crypto assets, Exodus's revenue in the first quarter fell by 36.8% year-on-year to $22.7 million, and net losses widened to $32.1 million.

According to market news, eBay has rejected GameStop's acquisition offer of approximately $56 billion, stating that it is "neither credible nor attractive."Previously, on May 4, GameStop proactively proposed to acquire the online trading platform eBay for about $56 billion. GameStop's CEO Cohen stated that the company holds about 5% of eBay's shares and proposed to acquire it for $125 per share in cash and stock. If eBay does not accept this proposal, Cohen is prepared to initiate a proxy battle and submit the proposal directly to shareholders.

AI and Web3 travel platform Staynex has announced that it has agreed to acquire the AI-native enterprise travel software company Helix, with specific terms of the deal not yet disclosed. After the acquisition is completed, Helix founder Gus Fraser will join Staynex as Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO).It is reported that the Helix platform is primarily built around features such as conversational booking, real-time policy enforcement, expenditure visualization, and carbon emission reporting. Through this acquisition, Staynex's business landscape will officially expand from consumer travel services to the enterprise-level travel management sector, covering a complete operational stack including travel search, booking, compliance governance, and payment.Officials stated that the initial focus of the integration will be on Helix's conversational booking, policy engine, and sustainability reporting features. In the future, Staynex plans to apply Helix's core intelligent technology to its existing B2C AI travel assistant to enhance personalized itinerary planning and booking efficiency, and to accelerate the development of various business functions within the group towards an AI-native direction.

According to informed sources, Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency platform Kraken, is conducting a new round of capital financing at a valuation of $20 billion, to which Kraken declined to comment.The company has recently significantly increased its merger and acquisition spending—acquiring the stablecoin-focused payment company Reap for $600 million and the digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million, both transactions conducted at a $20 billion valuation.Its largest transaction was the $1.5 billion acquisition of the U.S. retail futures platform and CFTC-registered futures commission merchant NinjaTrader in 2025, which provided Kraken with a significant foothold in the U.S. derivatives market.Regarding IPO progress, Payward secretly submitted an S-1 registration statement draft to the U.S. SEC on November 19, 2025. Although reports in March 2026 indicated that the company paused its IPO plans due to unfavorable market conditions, sources stated that the company still intends to go public, but may wait for market improvements.At last week's Consensus conference in Miami, Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that the trading platform is "80% ready" for an IPO.Additionally, Deutsche Börse (DB1) purchased approximately 1.5% of Payward's shares for $200 million through a secondary share sale in April 2026, valuing Payward at $13.3 billion (lower than the previous financing round's valuation of about $20 billion).In November 2025, Kraken completed an $800 million financing in two tranches to push traditional financial products onto the blockchain, with investors including Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, and Tribe Capital. Subsequently, Citadel Securities also made a strategic investment of $200 million at a $20 billion valuation.

According to Decrypt, MoonPay has acquired the AI trading startup Dawn Labs and launched the AI trading assistant Dawn CLI for prediction markets. This product allows users to generate and execute automated cryptocurrency trading strategies through natural language commands, with the first phase integrating with Polymarket.MoonPay stated that Dawn CLI can integrate the "strategy description --- code generation --- trade execution" process into a single interface, lowering the barriers to quantitative and automated trading. Neeraj Prasad, founder of Dawn Labs and Chief Engineer at MoonPay Labs, said that users do not need to have a development or quantitative background; they only need to describe the strategy in natural language, and the system will automatically complete the execution.MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright stated that the AI Agent will be able to autonomously develop and execute complex trading strategies, which is an important part of MoonPay's next phase of AI financial infrastructure layout. Previously, MoonPay had launched the AI Agent stablecoin payment card, an open-source AI wallet standard, and acquired the cryptocurrency key management company Sodot.

OpenAI announced the launch of a new business unit, "OpenAI Deployment Company," focused on helping enterprises deeply integrate AI systems into their core business processes, and has agreed to acquire the AI consulting and engineering firm Tomoro. This acquisition will bring approximately 150 Forward Deployed Engineers and deployment specialists to the deployment company.OpenAI stated that this department will directly assign engineers to work within enterprises, collaborating with management and frontline teams to restructure workflows, build AI production systems, and promote the practical implementation of AI in complex business scenarios. The initial funding scale of the deployment company exceeds $4 billion, with OpenAI as the majority shareholder, TPG leading the investment, and institutions such as Advent, Bain Capital, and Brookfield participating, along with major capital and consulting firms like Goldman Sachs, SoftBank, McKinsey, and Capgemini.OpenAI mentioned that currently, over 1 million enterprises are using its products, and the next phase of enterprise AI competition will shift from "using AI" to "restructuring organizations and business systems around AI."

NASDAQ-listed Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings has initiated a consent solicitation process for holders of its $600 million senior secured notes to amend certain covenant terms.MARA had previously signed an agreement on April 29 to acquire 100% of the parent company of Long Ridge. Since this transaction would trigger the "change of control" clause in the notes, it theoretically requires a cash buyback of all outstanding notes at 101% of the price. MARA is seeking the consent of noteholders to exclude this transaction from the definition of "change of control" and to designate MARA and its affiliates as "permitted holders."

According to market news, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings has initiated a holder consent solicitation process regarding Long Ridge Energy's $600 million senior secured notes to amend the relevant covenant terms.MARA had previously signed an agreement on April 29 to acquire 100% of the parent company of Long Ridge. Since this transaction would trigger the "change of control" clause in the notes, it theoretically requires a cash buyback of all outstanding notes at 101% of the price. MARA is seeking the consent of the noteholders to exclude this transaction from the definition of "change of control" and to list MARA and its affiliates as "permitted holders."

According to Bloomberg, Kraken's parent company Payward Inc. has agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based Reap Technologies for $600 million in cash and stock. Reap Technologies is a provider focused on stablecoin cross-border payments and commercial payment services. Payward and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that the valuation of the stock issued by Payward in this transaction is $20 billion. This acquisition aims to expand into the Asian market.

According to The Block, Core Scientific has agreed to acquire Oklahoma-based Bitcoin mining company Polaris DS LLC for $421 million, with the transaction expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval.This acquisition will add 440 megawatts of contracted power to Core Scientific, aimed at accelerating its expansion in artificial intelligence and high-density computing businesses. The 40-acre campus of Polaris in Muskogee is powered and operational, adjacent to Core Scientific's existing facilities. Core Scientific is transforming and expanding its original Bitcoin mining facilities into a colocation data center focused on artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

According to PRNewswire, the crypto-friendly investment app Public announced the acquisition of the AI investment service platform Treasury App, with the specific acquisition amount not yet disclosed.This transaction aims to strengthen the AI-driven brokerage business layout, focusing on promoting an upgrade of the investment experience centered around AI. Currently, Public supports trading in stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, and SOL.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the cryptocurrency trading platform Bullish will acquire the share transfer agency Equiniti for $4.2 billion (including debt). The acquisition of Equiniti is expected to close in January next year, pending regulatory approval.Equiniti provides services to nearly 3,000 listed companies, including Berkshire Hathaway and Moody's.