Animoca Brands and Currenc Group have suspended talks on a reverse merger that would have listed the Hong Kong-based digital asset investor on the Nasdaq, citing incompatible timelines. The proposed deal, first announced in November 2025, would have given Animoca a 95 percent stake in the combined company.
Animoca announced the mutual suspension on Tuesday. The company said the proposed timeframe to finalize the transaction did not align with the goals of either side. Currenc registered 50 million shares and confirmed the suspension in its own filings, noting that exclusivity on the term sheet had lapsed and that the split gave it more flexibility for growth financing.
What Animoca said
Yat Siu, Animoca co-founder and executive chairman, said corporate agility had to take precedence over the merger. He pointed to the company portfolio across decentralized finance, AI, non-fungible tokens and gaming, and said the company would continue to pursue optimal routes to a public listing.
The company is also preparing audited financial statements for fiscal 2024 and 2025. Those reports are prerequisites for any listing on a major exchange, and Siu described them as important milestones. Animoca was delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange in 2020 after failing to lodge periodic reports on time, so the audit work carries particular weight. Getting clean audited numbers on a portfolio of hundreds of private crypto investments is one of the harder accounting jobs in the sector, since many of those positions have no liquid market to price them against.
Currenc shares fell slightly in after-hours trading on the news. The company trades on Nasdaq under the ticker CURR.
Why the deal stalled
Reverse mergers let private companies list by combining with an already-public shell, skipping the longer road of a traditional IPO. They trade speed against certainty, since the private side still has to complete audits, satisfy exchange rules and win shareholder approval. Animoca and Currenc spent nearly a year on the deal and never got past the term sheet stage.
Market conditions moved against the timing. Animoca wants to list while its portfolio valuation is strong, and waiting through a merger process that no longer fit the calendar was not attractive. Currenc, for its part, noted the suspension freed it to raise capital without waiting for a deal that carried no assurance of closing. The two sides kept the announcement cordial, with both leaving open the possibility of resuming talks.
Animoca said it may resume merger discussions if conditions permit, leaving the door open without committing to anything. In practice, that phrasing usually means the company wants the option back on the table if market conditions improve, but not at the price of continuing to run its listing plans through someone else clock.
What it means for crypto listings
Animoca is one of the largest holders of digital asset and Web3 stakes outside sovereign funds, with positions in hundreds of projects. A Nasdaq listing would have given public market investors a regulated wrapper for that portfolio, something crypto investors have wanted for years and something a handful of treasury companies have tried to approximate with narrower holdings.
The company is not abandoning the goal. Siu said Animoca remains fully committed to listing on a major public exchange. The likely paths now are a traditional IPO once the audits are complete, a revival of the Currenc deal, or a different merger partner. Each carries trade-offs between speed and control over the process. A traditional IPO would take longer but would let Animoca set its own timetable and pitch its story directly to institutional investors rather than negotiating through a shell company board.
The suspension also lands at a crowded moment for crypto listings. Several digital asset companies filed for public listings this year, and a number of those deals have slipped as markets digest how much of the 2025 crypto rally has held. Animoca is large enough that its choice of route will be watched closely by the smaller firms lined up behind it. If it goes the traditional IPO route after the audits, that is a signal that reverse mergers have lost their appeal even for companies with strong portfolios. If it comes back with a different shell partner, the reverse merger window is still open.
Yat Siu said the company would “continue to pursue optimal routes” to a public listing.
For Currenc, the end of exclusivity means it can pursue other merger targets or raise money on its own terms. The company had positioned itself as a vehicle for digital asset exposure and now has a registered shelf of 50 million shares to work with. That shelf gives it room to raise capital quickly if it wants to, without waiting on another deal.
The practical effect on crypto markets is probably small. Animoca does not trade publicly, so nothing changes in the daily flow. The signal matters more than the mechanics. A company with this portfolio, this reputation and this long a runway on the listing question deciding to slow down rather than force a deal says something about how the listing window looks from the inside.
What to watch next: Animoca audited financial statements, which are the gating item for any listing route, and any new term sheet filed with the SEC. If a traditional IPO emerges, the filing will show how the company marks its private crypto portfolio for public investors, a number analysts have argued about for years since private crypto marks can swing wildly between funding rounds.