Cryptocurrency custody company Copper has been doing some research itself, looking for a buyer willing to pay around $500 million for the platform, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has been appointed to help sell the copper, the sources said.
Copper and Cantor did not respond to requests for comment.
Copper’s crown jewel is the ClearLoop settlement system, which allows network participants to perform delivery versus payment (DvP) from custody without putting assets on-chain, thereby eliminating settlement risk.
Copper closed its corporate custody business in 2023 to focus on ClearLoop, which launched in 2020 and serves dozens of institutional firms. The company has more than 1,000 active counterparties and more than $50 billion in monthly notional trading volume, according to its website.
Copper is reportedly considering an IPO earlier this year, potentially following in the footsteps of crypto custodian Bitgo, with whom Copper has partnered on the ClearLoop app. However, with bitcoin trading below $80,000 and artificial intelligence absorbing most of the capital, the cryptocurrency IPO market has seen a stagnant trend this year.
Meanwhile, trading in the crypto market has been active this year, as cryptocurrency, traditional and fintech companies look to expand their digital asset capabilities through acquisitions.
Earlier this year, Mastercard agreed to buy British stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. Kraken parent Payward agreed to acquire derivatives platform Bitnomial, while CoinDesk owner Bullish announced a $4.2 billion deal to buy Equiiniti, aimed at combining remittance agency services with tokenization infrastructure.
And just this week, London-based bank Standard Chartered announced that it would buy the remaining shares of Zodia Custody, its cryptocurrency custodian subsidiary, that it does not already own. The deal came just weeks after the bank’s venture capital division reportedly took a stake in crypto trading firm GSR at a valuation of more than $1 billion.
