MoonPay expands its Web3 presence by acquiring Nightshift

Crypto payments firm MoonPay has acquired Web3 creative agency Nightshift in order to help brands expand into crypto and collectible tokens.

 

Following the acquisition, Nightshift will rebrand as Otherlife but will be able to keep its portfolio of brand customers such as Adobe, Shopify, and the Arsenal Football Club. In addition, the company will now be able to work with some of MoonPay’s existing clients. 

The main purpose of the acquisition is to allow MoonPay to offer end-to-end lifecycle support for big brands. According to MoonPay officials cited by cryptonews.com, the company wants to be able to reach out to brands that might be interested in Web3 and to help them put together a complete end-to-end strategy. 

Despite the current state of the crypto market, MoonPay is confident that there is still significant interest in blockchain technology, particularly for various business cases such as loyalty programs and intellectual property supplements. According to MoonPay, the company is active in more than 160 countries and provides services to more than 5 million customers.

 

 

MoonPay’s expansion efforts and product launches

In December 2022, MoonPay revealed that it registered as a crypto asset business with the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority. At the time, the company’s Director of International Compliance emphasised the entity’s commitment to achieving the highest level of security and compliance, not just in the UK but around the world. 

The company revealed in a blog post that the FCA’s high compliance standards cause most applications to be rejected or withdrawn. According to the FCA’s Executive Director for Markets, nearly 75% of applications aren’t approved. 

In October 2022, MoonPay has officially entered the Brazilian market by sponsoring the Clube de Regatas do Flamengo football team. As part of this partnership, MoonPay agreed to help Flamengo leverage NFTs and web3 in order to improve fan engagement. 

In June 2022,  MoonPay has launched the HyperMint service, which allows brands to mint up to 100 million non-fungible tokens (NFTs) at once. 

The new service allowed creators and brands to attach images, music, video, or other metadata to a token on their own platform. The official launch marked a step in the company’s attempt to create a full suite for brands that wish to release their own digital assets. 

MoonPay emphasised that these digital assets would be utility tokens, which are not the same as security tokens. Security tokens must be registered with regulatory bodies such as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.