Canadian WonderFi Set To Acquire Coinberry for US$30 Million

Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform WonderFi Technologies, backed by venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, has announced planned acquisition of Coinberry, one of the largest crypto exchanges in Canada, for a reported fee of 38 million Canadian dollars ($30 million) in an all-share deal.

In January WonderFi acquired another Canadian exchange Bitbuy for US$162. The new deal would put about one-third of Canadian registered crypto trading platforms under its wing with more planned acquisitions to come. It would also make the company the largest publicly traded end-to-end crypto platform.

Investor Kevin O’Leary commented:

“WonderFi’s management team continues to execute on accretive acquisitions and this is an extremely important one, because it shows the speed and vision behind WonderFi’s plan. Compliant access to crypto is what matters and WonderFi has quickly established itself as a leader in Canada. Next stop, global.”

Through this acquisition, WonderFi is expected to gain 220,000 registered users and over $100 million of assets under custody as of the end of December, 2021. The company also expects to be the country’s largest crypto employer with 160 employees across its portfolio of companies.

According to WonderFi, its acquisitions of Bitbuy and Coinberry are part of a strategic move to consolidate Canada’s crypto trading platforms against unregulated entities like FTX and Coinbase.

The country’s securities regulator began cracking down on unlicensed exchanges in 2021 with the likes of Kucoin and Poloniex facing enforcement actions at the time.