After spending years gobbling up other Canadian cryptocurrency companies, Toronto-based WonderFi has agreed to be acquired by American trading platform Robinhood Markets.
Nasdaq-listed Robinhood has struck a deal to buy all issued and outstanding common shares of WonderFi for $0.36 CAD apiece in cash, a 41 percent premium relative to the closing price of WonderFi’s common shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) yesterday. This represents a total equity value of approximately $250 million CAD on a fully diluted, in-the-money basis.
“Our goals, our mission—everything we’re striving towards—is significantly accelerated through this transaction.”
Dean Skurka,
WonderFi
As part of the deal, WonderFi’s leadership and entire 115-person team will join Robinhood Crypto’s Canadian workforce. Robinhood, which established a Canadian headquarters in Toronto in 2024 as an infrastructure engineering hub, now employs 140 people in Canada.
The acquisition, which is expected to close during the second half of 2025, remains subject to approval by regulators, courts, and WonderFi shareholders. WonderFi is expected to delist from the TSX upon closing.
In an interview with BetaKit, WonderFi president and CEO Dean Skurka said that Robinhood “seems very committed to crypto” and described this deal as “an amazing outcome” for WonderFi shareholders, users, and staff. “Our goals, our mission—everything we’re striving towards—is significantly accelerated through this transaction.”
“Given the nature of the industry, where we have a lot of volatility, [an] all-cash transaction at a significant premium to where we are today is a really meaningful outcome for shareholders,” Skurka argued.
WonderFi will continue to operate its products following the acquisition. Since 2022, WonderFi or its subsidiaries have either wholly acquired or purchased assets from crypto trading platforms, including Bitbuy, Bitvo, Bitstamp, Coinsquare, CoinSmart, and Coinberry, and consolidated them under the Bitbuy and Coinsquare brands.
Today, Bitbuy and Coinsquare are two of Canada’s most popular regulated crypto exchanges, and WonderFi has over 1.7 million registered users and $2.1 billion in client assets under custody. The company also owns crypto payments firm SmartPay and a stake in crypto custodian Tetra Trust.
The deal comes as Robinhood has been plotting a crypto expansion under United States (US) President Donald Trump, who ran for office on a promise to make the US “the crypto capital of the world” and has spent his first months in power rewriting crypto rules. Analysts at research firm Bernstein believe the company’s crypto push could double its share price. In February, the US Securities and Exchange Commission closed an investigation into whether tokens traded on Robinhood Crypto are securities. No action was taken.
“WonderFi has built a formidable family of brands serving beginner and advanced crypto users alike, making them an ideal partner to accelerate Robinhood’s mission in Canada,” Robinhood Crypto senior vice-president and general manager Johann Kerbrat said in a statement. “We look forward to partnering with the WonderFi team to deliver innovative, user-centric crypto products to Canadian customers.”
WonderFi is set to become Robinhood’s second major crypto acquisition since 2024, after its purchase of Luxembourg crypto exchange Bitstamp last year for $200 million USD in cash.
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“Through a long and focused effort, WonderFi successfully built one of Canada’s largest registered crypto-trading platforms,” WonderFi executive chairman Bobby Halpern said in a statement. “This transaction is the culmination of those efforts and the launchpad for Robinhood to democratize finance across Canada.”
If it goes through, the acquisition will put Robinhood in direct competition with Wealthsimple, which could be considered the trading platform’s Canadian counterpart. Wealthsimple launched its crypto offering in 2020, and has achieved over $73 billion CAD in assets under administration across its product offerings, serving more than three million Canadians. By way of comparison, Robinhood reported $187 billion USD in assets under custody in March.
US crypto firms Coinbase and Kraken have also made Canada a focus in recent years.
While crypto market conditions have improved and WonderFi has taken strides towards reshaping its business since the downturn and its acquisition spree, the company has struggled to win back public market investors.
WonderFi’s stock price on the TSX remains down approximately 68 percent since its peak of $0.65 in June 2022, when it began trading on the TSX. The company’s all-time closing share price high was $2.43 in November 2021 on the Neo Exchange.
Public market investors have reacted favourably to the news, as WonderFi’s and Robinhood’s shares closed up 35 percent and nearly nine percent on the day, respectively.
“It‘s shaping up to be a very exciting next chapter for all of us here,” Skurka said.
Feature image courtesy WonderFi.