The first time we heard about MoonPay was during the NFT golden era. Every time a celebrity like Justin Bieber, Madonna, or Eminem bought a Bored Ape NFT, MoonPay was somehow involved. Back then, I never dove deep into the company. I figured they were some sort of OTC desk or collectible broker for the rich and famous. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Fast forward to this week, and my entire feed was one thing: the MoonPay airdrop. We even claimed ours yesterday. That felt like the perfect excuse to finally dive a little deeper into the company. So let’s answer the question properly: what is MoonPay, and why is everyone in crypto suddenly talking about them again?
What is MoonPay?
MoonPay is a crypto payments company founded in 2019 by Ivan Soto-Wright, Victor Faramond, and Maximilian Crown. The company is headquartered in Miami and serves tens of millions of users across more than 180 countries.
In simple terms, MoonPay is the bridge between your bank account and crypto. Their core product lets you buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, stablecoins, and hundreds of other tokens with a credit card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. You’ve probably used MoonPay without even realizing it. When you hit “buy crypto” inside popular wallets like MetaMask, Ledger, Trust Wallet, or Phantom, MoonPay is often the engine running under the hood.
That’s the business model in a nutshell. Instead of competing with exchanges for your attention, MoonPay plugs into hundreds of apps and websites as infrastructure. The wallet gets a smooth onboarding experience, the user gets crypto in minutes, and MoonPay takes a fee on every transaction. Boring? Maybe. Profitable? Very. The company was reportedly profitable from year one and raised a massive $555 million Series A in late 2021 at a $3.4 billion valuation, led by Tiger Global and Coatue.
The celebrity NFT concierge era
Now, back to those Bored Apes. It turns out my “OTC desk for celebrities” guess wasn’t completely crazy. During the NFT boom, MoonPay ran an invite-only “Concierge” service. Celebrities would set a budget, and MoonPay would handle the entire purchase of a high-end NFT on their behalf. No seed phrases, no gas settings, no stress.
That’s how Justin Bieber, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, and a long list of A-listers ended up with Bored Apes. When Jimmy Fallon showed off his ape on The Tonight Show and called MoonPay “PayPal for crypto,” CEO Ivan Soto-Wright was literally sitting backstage. Genius marketing, honestly. Every celebrity ape purchase doubled as a MoonPay commercial.
What does MoonPay do today?
The NFT hype cooled off, but MoonPay kept building. Here’s what the company looks like in 2026:
- Fiat on-ramp and off-ramp. Still the core business. Buy and sell crypto with normal money, embedded in hundreds of wallets and apps.
- Stablecoin payments infrastructure. In 2025, MoonPay went on a shopping spree. They acquired Helio, Solana’s top payment processor, for $175 million, and followed it up with Iron, a stablecoin infrastructure startup, for a reported $100 million+. The goal is to let businesses send and settle payments in stablecoins like USDC instantly, worldwide.
- Enterprise services. Regulated, licensed rails for fintechs and banks. MoonPay is registered as a money-services business in the US and secured MiCA approval in Europe, which matters more than ever in the current regulatory climate.
- PayBox. The newest product, and the reason your feed exploded this week. More on that below.
One fun side note: when the Trump memecoin launched in January 2025, MoonPay was the company processing the card purchases. Demand was so insane over inauguration weekend that they onboarded 750,000 new users in a single week and had to take emergency loans from Galaxy and Ripple just to keep the flow running while banks were closed. Whatever you think of memecoins, that’s a serious stress test passed.
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The MoonPay x PayBox USDC airdrop
So why is MoonPay trending right now? The company launched PayBox, a non-custodial wallet that plugs directly into Claude and ChatGPT. To celebrate, they started dropping free USDC to users who connected their AI assistant and linked their X account. Reported claims ranged from a few dollars to over $600.
We claimed ours yesterday. As soon as the drop went live, we updated our published guides and shared everything on X, so if you’re active with us, chances are you already claimed yours too. The demand was so heavy that MoonPay paused the claims last night, and they’ve confirmed the faucet will reopen today. We’ll update you on X the moment it goes live again, so keep notifications on.
If you haven’t set up yet, do it now. The full walkthrough with screenshots is in our MoonPay PayBox airdrop guide, and we’re tracking every update, requirement change, and reopening time on the MoonPay PayBox USDC drop listing. Setup takes five minutes. When the faucet reopens, prepared users will claim in thirty seconds while everyone else is still creating passkeys.
Beyond the free money, PayBox is genuinely a cool product. You get a real crypto wallet living inside Claude and ChatGPT, where you can check balances, swap tokens, and send crypto just by typing a sentence. Your keys stay protected behind passkeys and spending limits, so the AI never touches them directly. I can see this being one of the ways retail enters crypto next cycle. People already talk to AI assistants every day. Adding a wallet to that conversation removes the scariest part of crypto onboarding entirely.
Final words
MoonPay has quietly become one of the most important companies in crypto. They started as the “buy button” inside your favorite wallet, became the celebrity NFT concierge of the bull market, and are now building stablecoin rails and AI-native wallets. The PayBox airdrop is a great marketing stunt, but the bigger story is where this is heading: crypto that works inside the tools people already use.
Claim your USDC, test the product, and keep an eye on our channels. Something tells me this won’t be the last MoonPay airdrop we cover.
If you enjoyed this introduction, check out our full series of exchange reviews for more deep dives into the platforms we actually use.
Frequently asked questions
Is MoonPay safe to use? MoonPay is a regulated company, registered as a money-services business in the US with money transmitter licenses across dozens of states, plus MiCA approval in Europe. As always, only use official links and never share your seed phrase or passkey.
Does MoonPay have its own token? No. MoonPay has not launched or announced a native token. The current PayBox campaign pays rewards in USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin.
Is the MoonPay PayBox airdrop still live? The first faucet round drained within hours. MoonPay paused claims and confirmed another round is coming. Follow us on X for the reopening announcement.
What is PayBox exactly? PayBox is a non-custodial payment vault by MoonPay that lets AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT check balances, swap, send, and pay with crypto on your behalf, while you keep full control through passkeys and approvals.
WRITTEN BY
Morten ChristensenFounder, AirdropAlert
Crypto class of ’13, airdrop farmer since 2016. Avid trader and DeFi veteran. His market commentary has been featured by Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, and CNN.
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