“Can Coinmama survive as an asset-light crypto on-ramp aggregator by layering open banking payments over a global affiliate network, after ceding its direct-brokerage role post-Wellfield acquisition?”
Founded in 2013 as one of the first platforms to let consumers buy Bitcoin with a credit card globally, Coinmama grew to 2 million users before being acquired by Canadian public company Wellfield Technologies in 2022. Post-acquisition, Coinmama shifted from being a direct broker/exchange to an aggregator and affiliate platform — routing users to third-party licensed digital asset service providers (including Simplex) and earning referral revenue, rather than holding fiat or acting as counterparty. On the payment side, the company progressively added open banking rails (TrueLayer, Volt) to reduce friction and card-fraud risk for European on-ramp transactions.