MoonPay launches MoonPay Trade to attract banks to DeFi and token assets
MoonPay introduces MoonPay Trade, a new institutional platform that promises banks and fintechs unified access to tokenized assets, DeFi protocols and stablecoin liquidity across more than 200 blockchains.
Summary
- MoonPay Trade targets banks, fintechs and enterprises with a single connection of token assets and DeFi.
- The platform will serve as the implementation layer for MoonPay Institutional
- Supports token wallet registration, collateral transfer and on-chain lending via Aave, Morpho and Maple
According to CoinDesk, MoonPay launched on May 21 MoonPay Trade as a dedicated trading stack for its institutional clients. The platform is aimed at banks, fintech companies and corporate customers, providing a single gateway for token assets, DeFi protocols and stablecoin liquidity across more than 200 blockchain networks.
According to Keith Grossman, President of Moonpay, the new layer of crypto payments will contain built-in layers that can seamlessly integrate and enable retail payments.
The President recently tweeted a Fox News anchor arguing that “stablecoins are the future.”
Accordingly, MoonPay said MoonPay Trade will serve as the core of its newly launched MoonPay Institutional business, which the company built on its recent acquisition of Israeli digital asset security firm Sodot.
In this way, MoonPay Institutional is designed to help financial institutions, asset managers, trading firms and exchanges, providing secure key management, cross-chain securities management and access to digital asset markets and DeFi.
From retail on-ramps to the institutional route, where does Moonpay stand?
Since its inception, MoonPay has been widely recognized as a retail fiat-to-crypto on-ramp embedded in wallets, exchanges and consumer applications. MoonPay Trade marks a shift to deeper infrastructure: rather than just selling crypto to end users, the company now wants to empower banks and fintechs as they connect to larger token markets and DeFi liquidity.
MoonPay now says Trade will support token wallet registration, allowing institutions to purchase token funds and structured products directly on-chain, using stablecoins and currencies as tokens.
The platform also supports collateral transfer, enabling institutions to transfer token collateral across chains and locations, and includes DeFi protocols such as Aave, Morpho and Maple Finance so clients can borrow, lend and generate yield directly on-chain through a single interface.
Under the hood, MoonPay relies on the multi-party computation (MPC) wallet technology it acquired through Sodot to secure institutional keys and automate complex workflows without revealing private keys or requiring clients to carry raw wallets. The company says it now serves more than 30 million customers in 180 countries and works with more than 500 business customers, meeting its growth plans as it focuses on becoming the access layer for DeFi.
Competing with institutional DeFi flows, how do other DeFi players stack up?
All of this comes as only about 10% of RWA Liquidity applies to DeFi protocols. As of May 21, a study by Tanaka shows that the RWA market is exploding, but DeFi barely participates: only about 10 percent of the token assets remain in DeFi, and about 7 billion dollars in token gold and assets in the chain, only 184 million dollars are used in DeFi agreements.
As such, MoonPay Trade enters the increasingly crowded field of DeFi access platforms, where players like Fireblocks, Circle, Coinbase and BitGo are all vying to become the default conduits to token funds and on-chain credit markets.
The company’s pitch now seems to be that a combination of consumer access, stablecoin infrastructure, and new institutional maintenance and execution stack can make it a single gateway for banks and fintechs that don’t want to involve multiple vendors.
In that sense, MoonPay Trade is a product launch and strategic rebranding, showing that the company intends to compete not just as a retail payment button, but as a full-stack infrastructure provider in the era of tokenized and integrated funds.
