Animoca Brands and Currenc Suspend the Merger Meant to List It on Nasdaq

Animoca Brands and Nasdaq-listed Currenc Group have suspended the reverse merger that was supposed to take the digital-asset investor public again. Both sides agreed that the time still needed to finish the deal no longer fit their strategic plans, citing evolving market conditions, in a statement Animoca dated 22 September. The Block carried the news shortly before 11 p.m. New York time on Monday, already Tuesday morning in Asia. Animoca says it still wants a listing on a major exchange. It named neither the exchange nor a date.

What the deal was

The plan was announced on 3 November 2025. Under a non-binding term sheet, Currenc would have acquired all of Animoca through an Australian scheme of arrangement, a court-approved takeover procedure. Animoca shareholders would have ended up with about 95% of the combined company and Currenc's existing holders with about 5%. Currenc's own AI and remittance businesses were to pass to its current shareholders before closing, the November release said. Yat Siu, Animoca's co-founder, pitched the result then as "the world's first publicly-listed, diversified digital assets conglomerate." Currenc's shares had doubled in the five trading days before that announcement, CoinDesk reported at the time, and were set to open at $3.78. The merged group was to trade on Nasdaq under the Animoca Brands name, with a dual-class share structure. Animoca also planned a New York office.

Deadlines that slipped

The timetable kept stretching. Exclusivity was set at three months in November and extended in May to 30 June 2026, according to a Currenc release carried by StockTitan and to crypto.news. That May release aimed to close in the third quarter, with a long-stop date of 31 December. The quarter ends next week. Reuters, in a report relayed by the Rallies news feed on Tuesday, said Currenc halted talks after exclusivity expired without a definitive agreement and would look at other financing. Animoca's statement says nothing about an expired window. We could not check the Reuters account against its original.

"Our corporate agility must take precedence," Yat Siu, Animoca's executive chairman, said in Tuesday's statement.

Accounts first, listing later

Most of the statement is about paperwork. Animoca released audited accounts for 2023 on 17 July, its second audited set this year, and says the 2024 accounts are in preparation. That backlog has a history. The company was delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange in 2020, and in 2022 the regulator ASIC fined it for failing to lodge financial reports for 2019 through 2021, The Block recalled on Monday. The November filing gave a rare look at the business. Digital-asset advisory revenue was $165 million in 2024, up 116%, while Web3 gaming and NFT revenue fell 40% to $110 million, according to CoinDesk.

Where each side goes now

Siu said the company will "continue to pursue optimal routes to a public listing," and The Block reports the two may reopen talks "if and when conditions permit." Other large crypto firms have also been slow to reach public markets this year. Payward pushed its Kraken listing back to the second quarter of 2027, and Consensys split MetaMask off without a word on an IPO. Currenc keeps its tokenization and AI services and recently worked on tokenizing Mint Incorporation's shares, crypto.news reported. Neither company has named a new partner. No new timetable exists either.