MoonPay Acquires Meso to Accelerate Global Payments Network Expansion

Highlights:

• MoonPay acquires Meso to accelerate its global payments network expansion.
• Meso’s co-founders join MoonPay in senior leadership roles.
• MoonPay strengthens its system with Helio, Iron, and Decent.xyz acquisitions.

Crypto payment solution provider MoonPay has announced the acquisition of payments startup Meso to strengthen its global financial infrastructure. The deal brings new leadership talent while aligning with the company’s mission to unify banks, card networks, stablecoins, and blockchains. Although the acquisition cost was not revealed, the expansion marks a significant milestone for MoonPay’s growing network, as per the statement.

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we're excited to share that MoonPay has acquired Meso to help us build crypto's largest global payments network

Ali Aghareza and Ben Mills will be joining our team as new CTO and SVP of Product

let's get to work! pic.twitter.com/fMP22ihdbH

— MoonPay 🟣 (@moonpay) September 15, 2025

Strengthening Leadership with Experienced Innovators

Meso’s co-founders will now be joining MoonPay in senior leadership roles. Ali Aghareza will be Chief Technology Officer, and Ben Mills, Senior Vice President of Product. Both executives previously held executive positions at Braintree, PayPal, and Venmo, where they helped scale widely adopted payment systems. MoonPay’s co-founder and CEO, Ivan Soto-Wright, highlighted the impact of the acquisition.

He said:

“We’ve made trusted ramps that brought millions of people into crypto. Now we’re building the global network that will move money across every form and in every market.”

The addition of Aghareza and Mills helps to strengthen the case for MoonPay to expand into new regions and bring traditional finance together with blockchain technology. Their reliable history of creating successful infrastructure now backs MoonPay’s vision of providing a single unified payments system.

Expanding Through Strategic Acquisitions

MoonPay acquires Meso as part of a bigger growth strategy. Earlier this year, the firm bought Solana-based Helio in a $175 million deal. In addition, it acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider Iron in March. Each deal adds critical components that help MoonPay connect crypto and traditional financial rails under one regulated framework.

The firm has also obtained significant regulatory approvals. It received a BitLicense and money transmitter licenses from the New York State Department of Financial Services in June. This milestone permits MoonPay to serve its customers in all 50 states in the United States while still ensuring that they adhere to strict financial oversight.

🗽 BREAKING NEWS 🗽

the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has granted MoonPay our BitLicense and Money Transmitter Licenses!!! pic.twitter.com/aghrXhSxsF

— MoonPay 🟣 (@moonpay) June 4, 2025

In Europe, the company continues to comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework to ensure access to the wider European market. These steps reflect MoonPay’s strategy to not only grow as a global entity but also work within the ever-changing framework for rules of digital finance.

Building a Global Payments Network

With its recent acquisitions, MoonPay is taking a leap from being a provider of crypto ramps to being an entirely integrated payments network. By combining Meso’s infrastructure with Helio and Iron, the firm now has important components needed to connect banks, cards, and digital assets.

For businesses and consumers, this means one trusted way to send, receive, and interact with money across different forms of it. MoonPay’s ecosystem makes payments possible from bank transfers, cards, mobile platforms, stablecoins, and blockchain-based assets, all under one umbrella.

Beyond infrastructure, MoonPay also launched new financial products. In July, the company launched a Solana liquid staking option, which enabled users to earn income with little investment. Customers can stake from one dollar and receive a tokenized representation of their holdings, and be able to redeem their assets at any time.

While building out this broader ecosystem, MoonPay has also refined its operations. The firm recently cut its workforce by 10% to cope with its high costs and improve its margins. Despite these adjustments, the company has continued to focus on growth by acquiring companies and launching new products.

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