WonderFi set to buy another licensed Canadian crypto exchange

WonderFi Technologies, backed by venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, has announced that it will acquire 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.

The news marks the second Canadian crypto exchange purchased by the Vancouver-based DeFi platform WonderFi following the Bitbuy acquisition in January. Following the Coinberry deal, WonderFi will own two out of the six licensed crypto trading platforms in the country.

According to the announcement, Coinberry services over 220,000 customers and controls more than $80 million in assets under management. 

WonderFi says its acquisition of Bitbuy and Coinberry is geared towards consolidating 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.

About Author

Osato is a news reporter at The Block as part of the crypto ecosystems team that focuses on DAO governance, staking, blockchain layers, and DeFi. He was previously a news reporter at Cointelegraph. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, he enjoys crosswords, poker, and attempting to beat his Scrabble high score. Follow him on Twitter at @OsatoNomayo.