Connect with us

Published

on

In this article

MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright speaking at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Cryptocurrency start-ups have raised record funding this year.

It’s no surprise, then, that some major players in the space — from the Winklevoss twins’ virtual currency exchange Gemini to Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin’s blockchain start-up ConsenSys — announced massive new funding deals in the last week.

MoonPay, a relative newcomer, is taking the crypto mania in venture capital to new heights. The three-year-old fintech firm said Monday it has raised $555 million in its first-ever financing round. The investment, led by Tiger Global and Coatue, values the company at $3.4 billion.

Founded in 2018, Miami-based MoonPay’s software lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers or mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

It also sells its technology to other businesses including crypto website Bitcoin.com and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, a model CEO Ivan Soto-Wright calls “crypto-as-a-service.”

Soto-Wright said the firm aims to make crypto accessible to the masses in the same way that video-conferencing tools like Zoom made it easier to make calls over the internet.

“With the blockchain and cryptocurrencies, I think right now we are still in the dial-up days,” he told CNBC in an interview.

“Eventually we will get to this place where it’s frictionless to move any amount of value around anywhere in the world, and costs move as close as possible to zero.”

‘PayPal for crypto’

With prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies hitting all-time highs lately, venture capital investment in the start-ups powering the market is booming. Investors are looking for the next Coinbase after the crypto exchange giant’s blockbuster listing in April.

MoonPay’s pitch to investors is that it offers a “gateway” to digital assets. For now, that includes bitcoin, ether and other digital tokens like NFTs. But Soto-Wright’s vision is to expand the platform to include everything from digital fashion to tokenized stocks.

“People are calling us similar to PayPal, but for crypto,” he said.

The company has strong controls and checks in place to tackle money laundering, Soto-Wright said. Regulators have become increasingly wary about illicit activity in the market.

MoonPay says it has been profitable since launching its platform in 2019. The firm is on track to hit $150 million in annual revenue this year after transaction volumes skyrocketed 35-fold from 2020. Its service is now used by more than 7 million customers.

Still, the company faces stiff competition, not least from fintech pioneers like PayPal, which rolled out its own crypto features last year.

Soto-Wright said he’s not worried about the competition. He described PayPal as a “walled garden” that doesn’t give users control over their assets. “We believe the future of crypto is about customers taking possession of their private keys,” passwords that grant people access to their funds, he said.

IPO ambitions

Looking ahead, MoonPay plans to spend the money raised on new products and expansion. Soto-Wright said the firm already has ambitions to take the business public. “We have aspirations eventually to be a public company,” he said.

Cryptocurrencies are notoriously volatile, however, and that has impacted even the most well-known players in the space. Coinbase, for example, missed sales estimates in the third quarter after a drop in monthly users.

Bitcoin hit an all-time high of nearly $69,000 earlier this month, but has since dropped about 17%. Ether, meanwhile, is down 13% from its record high.

Soto-Wright said MoonPay is prepared for a potential downturn in crypto markets, adding the firm is “agnostic” on which assets it supports.

“In the same way that telecoms got disrupted by voice over IP (internet protocol), we think, over time, financial services and all these different applications will be disrupted by the blockchain,” he said.

“There’s obviously going to be volatility as the market is trying to discover what assets, what blockchains are ultimately going to get adopted.”

Continue Reading

Technology

Bitcoin rises to fresh record above $112,000, helped by Nvidia-led tech rally

Published

on

By

Bitcoin rises to fresh record above 2,000, helped by Nvidia-led tech rally

The logo of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin can be seen on a coin in front of a Bitcoin chart.

Silas Stein | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Bitcoin hit a fresh record on Wednesday afternoon as an Nvidia-led rally in equities helped push the price of the cryptocurrency higher into the stock market close.

The price of bitcoin was last up 1.9%, trading at $110,947.49, according to Coin Metrics. Just before 4:00 p.m. ET, it hit a high of $112,052.24, surpassing its May 22 record of $111,999.

The flagship cryptocurrency has been trading in a tight range for several weeks despite billions of dollars flowing into bitcoin exchange traded funds. Bitcoin purchases by public companies outpaced ETF inflows in the second quarter. Still, bitcoin is up just 2% in the past month.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Bitcoin climbs above $112,000

On Wednesday, tech stocks rallied as Nvidia became the first company to briefly touch $4 trillion in market capitalization. In the same session, investors appeared to shrug off the latest tariff developments from President Donald Trump. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite notched a record close.

While institutions broadly have embraced bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative, it is still a risk asset that rises and falls alongside stocks depending on what’s driving investor sentiment. When the market is in risk-on mode and investors buy growth-oriented assets like tech stocks, bitcoin and crypto tend to rally with them.

Investors have been expecting bitcoin to reach new records in the second half of the year as corporate treasuries accelerate their bitcoin buying sprees and Congress gets closer to passing crypto legislation.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Continue Reading

Technology

Perplexity launches AI-powered web browser for select group of subscribers

Published

on

By

Perplexity launches AI-powered web browser for select group of subscribers

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Perplexity AI on Wednesday launched a new artificial intelligence-powered web browser called Comet in the startup’s latest effort to compete in the consumer internet market against companies like Google and Microsoft.

Comet will allow users to connect with enterprise applications like Slack and ask complex questions via voice and text, according to a brief demo video Perplexity released on Wednesday.

The browser is available to Perplexity Max subscribers, and the company said invite-only access will roll out to a waitlist over the summer. Perplexity Max costs users $200 per month.

“We built Comet to let the internet do what it has been begging to do: to amplify our intelligence,” Perplexity wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

Perplexity is best known for its AI-powered search engine that gives users simple answers to questions and links out to the original source material on the web. After the company was accused of plagiarizing content from media outlets, it launched a revenue-sharing model with publishers last year.

In May, Perplexity was in late-stage talks to raise $500 million at a $14 billion valuation, a source familiar confirmed to CNBC. The startup was also approached by Meta earlier this year about a potential acquisition, but the companies did not finalize a deal.

“We will continue to launch new features and functionality for Comet, improve experiences based on your feedback, and focus relentlessly–as we always have–on building accurate and trustworthy AI that fuels human curiosity,” Perplexity said Wednesday.

WATCH: Perplexity CEO on AI race: The market of providing answers to questions will become a commodity

Perplexity CEO on AI race: The market of providing answers to questions will become a commodity

Continue Reading

Technology

Retailers log $7.9 billion in online sales in first 24 hours of Prime Day

Published

on

By

Retailers log .9 billion in online sales in first 24 hours of Prime Day

A worker sorts packages on Amazon Prime Day in New York on July 8, 2025.

Klaus Galiano | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. online sales jumped 9.9% year over year to $7.9 billion on Tuesday, the kickoff of Amazon‘s Prime Day megasale, according to Adobe Analytics.

At that level, it marks the “single biggest e-commerce day so far this year,” Adobe said. It also eclipsed total online spending during Thanksgiving last year, when sales on the holiday reached $6.1 billion.

Amazon’s Prime Day bargain blitz began on Tuesday and lasts through Friday. The event, first launched in 2015 as a way to hook new Prime members, has pushed other retailers to launch counterprogramming.

Walmart‘s six-day deals event also started Tuesday, while Target Circle Week kicked off on Sunday and Best Buy launched a Black Friday in July promotion that began Monday.

Home and outdoor goods showed signs of strong demand during the first day of Amazon’s discount event, said Kashif Zafar, CEO of Xnurta, an advertising platform that serves more than 20,000 online businesses.

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

Other historically well-performing categories such as beauty and household essentials saw softer demand early on, but could see demand pick up as Prime Day continues, he added.

“Early Prime Day numbers might look soft compared to last year’s surge, but it’s too early to call the event a miss,” Zafar said in an email. “With four days instead of two, we’re seeing a different rhythm, consumers are spreading out their purchases.”

Adobe expects online sales to reach $23.8 billion across all retailers during the 96-hour event, a level that’s “equivalent to two Black Fridays.”

U.S. online shoppers spent $14.2 billion during the 48-hour Prime Day event last year, according to Adobe.

This year’s Prime Day is landing at an uncertain time for retailers and consumers as they grapple with the fallout of President Donald Trump‘s unpredictable tariff policies.

U.S. consumer confidence worsened in June after improving in May as Americans remained concerned about the tariffs’ effect on the economy and prices, according to the Conference Board.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said last month the company hasn’t seen prices “appreciably go up” on its site as a result of tariffs.

Some third-party sellers previously told CNBC they were considering raising or had already raised the price of some of their products manufactured in China as the cost of tariffs became burdensome.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Continue Reading

Trending