MoonPay Buys Glide to Make Crypto Deposits Less Painful
MoonPay’s purchase of Glide, a startup founded by two Robinhood wallet veterans, expands its share of the crypto deposit business in 2026. The problem sounds mundane: getting money onto a platform without baffling new users. It isn’t. Why does this matter? Because every confusing screen gives investors another reason to leave. If Glide’s technology delivers, funding an account should feel easier. Exchanges and apps may get more deposits in return, plus deeper liquidity. My take: boring plumbing can have an outsized effect.
MoonPay has been on a buying spree. Glide is its sixth announced acquisition of 2026. Founded by Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong in 2023, the startup helps apps accept deposits from supported tokens and wallets. It also supports centralized exchanges and cards. The system handles asset swaps and cross-chain transfers for the user—a genuine relief for anyone who has picked the wrong bridge. Glide processes more than $100 million in annual volume across over 100 tokens and 30 blockchain networks, while also taking deposits through centralized exchanges and fiat onramps. Soni and Tong previously led the team behind Robinhood’s crypto wallet. They saw retail demand up close during the 2021 bull run, when Bitcoin (BTC) topped $60,000. I’ll be honest: that background matters more than another polished product demo.
The purchase suggests MoonPay believes simpler deposits will draw more people into crypto. Most acquisition coverage focuses on adding features. That’s only half right. MoonPay also appears to want control over the exact moment users move money into an app. Every extra step is an exit ramp. MoonPay will add Glide’s technology to MoonPay Deposits, which Wallet in Telegram, Moonshot, and Paysafe already use. A smoother process could increase trading volume and liquidity for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Smaller altcoins may benefit too. Will token prices jump overnight because of better payment plumbing? No. Even so, improved fiat onramps helped new buyers enter the market in 2020 and 2021, while Bitcoin was climbing toward record prices.
Glide fits beside MoonPay’s other purchases, though the strategy is broader than a neat acquisition list suggests. Key management provider Sodot was renamed MoonPay Institutional. Payment companies Decent and DFlow also joined the group, with DFlow folded into MoonPay Trade. MoonPay bought AI accounting platform Entendre, followed by AI trading infrastructure provider Dawn Labs. It is bringing more of its financial services under one roof. I would not take that as proof that crypto has grown up, but it says plenty about where the company is betting. Glide’s routing system checks instant relayers and bridges, then compares swap routes to find a quicker or cheaper transaction. Speed matters. Ethereum (ETH), for instance, moved as much as 15% in one day during the 2022 downturn. In that situation, a slow, costly transfer can become a real loss. Counter to the usual advice, the cheapest route is not automatically the best one when the market is moving that fast.
MoonPay CEO and cofounder Ivan Soto Wright called deposits a “natural entry point for users bringing funds onto a platform.” He added, “Glide has built some of the best deposit technology in the market. Bringing their team into MoonPay accelerates our deposits strategy and puts us at the center of where this category is headed.”
Glide cofounder Tushar Soni said, “We built Glide so users could fund their wallets quickly with the tokens they already have and for apps to streamline their onboarding.” He expects MoonPay to combine Glide’s deposit system with its ramps, virtual accounts, and swap products. The aim is to cut the number of steps users face when funding an account.
What this means
Depositing crypto could get easier on apps that use MoonPay. Support for centralized exchanges and cards removes some of the fiddly work that puts beginners off; compatibility with different wallets removes another layer. Investors may find moving money between platforms simpler. Added deposits could improve market liquidity. But the announcement itself proves little. To my eye, this is where the optimistic story needs a hard check: can apps using MoonPay Deposits actually shorten the funding process and stop losing so many people during signup? That is the test.
Wallet in Telegram, Moonshot, and Paysafe are the three obvious places to watch first. If Glide improves their deposit process, they should report more users with funded accounts. Decentralized exchanges may also see higher trading volumes if moving money into them becomes less of a chore. The same applies to other DeFi protocols. None of this is certain. MoonPay’s next purchases may clarify its plans, but I think transaction volume and active-user figures will tell the sharper story: do these businesses work well together? Regulatory changes expected in late 2026 or early 2027 may attract more institutions and retail users. Yes, that shifts attention away from product design and back toward policy. It has to. Much will depend on what the final rules permit.