Animoca & Currenc suspend Nasdaq reverse merger over audits

Animoca Brands & Currenc Group just paused their Nasdaq reverse merger 🏦 — the Web3 gaming giant is stuck because it lacks current audited financials (its FY2023 report came ~3 years late). Yet Animoca's stablecoin arm Anchorpoint quietly pressed ahead: HKDAP got one of only two HKMA stablecoin licences and launched institutional beta access. The path to public markets now hinges on audits, not deal terms. But is a delay a sign of discipline — or a missed window? 🕒 Could this shift the race to list Web3's biggest name?

On September 22, 2026, Animoca Brands and Nasdaq-listed Currenc Group mutually suspended the reverse merger first announced November 3, 2025. The deal would have routed the Hong Kong-based Web3 gaming and venture firm onto a US exchange via a scheme of arrangement, with Animoca shareholders holding roughly 95% of the combined entity. Both parties cited a closing timeline that no longer matched short- and medium-term strategic goals against a shifting market backdrop.

What Changed

The suspension doesn't alter Animoca's private-operating reality; it alters its route to public markets. Under the original term sheet, Currenc would acquire all Animoca shares via an Australian scheme of arrangement, giving Animoca ~95% ownership of the combined Nasdaq-listed company. Closing was targeted for Q3 2026, with an exclusivity window extended through June 30. That target is now void. The companies left open the possibility of revisiting terms, but only "under different circumstances."

The proximate cause is a structural one: Animoca cannot complete a listed merger cleanly because it lacks current audited financial statements. The company issued its FY 2023 audited results only on July 17, 2026—a roughly three-year reporting lag rooted in its 2020 delisting from the ASX and a 2022 penalty from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for missing filings.

How the Mechanism Works

A reverse merger through an Australian scheme of arrangement requires a shareholder vote, court approval, and—critically for a Nasdaq listing—clean audited financials meeting US exchange standards. Animoca has been trading without current audited reporting since its ASX exit, which is precisely the compliance gap that makes a public listing timeline hard to lock. Regulatory approval is needed on both sides of the Pacific, and with ongoing ASIC scrutiny of the company's crypto activities, the approval window carries more uncertainty than the November 2025 term sheet assumed.

The two parties reached different points of strain: Currenc, a tokenization-and-infrastructure vehicle, wants a realizable deal timeline; Animoca wants a listing that won't be blocked by stale financials. When those clocks diverged, the merger paused.

Distribution of Value, Risk, and Leverage

The suspension shifts leverage toward regulators and away from both equity groups.

• Animoca shareholders hold ~95% of a private entity with no near-term public exit. Their liquidation channel depends on Animoca's audit progress and a future listing—via merger revival, direct IPO, or alternative routing.
• Currenc shareholders lose the acquisition vehicle and its implied crypto exposure, keeping Currenc solely a tokenization business with its own separate initiatives.
• Regulators (ASIC and US exchange authorities) effectively gate market access. Completing audits is now the rate-limiting step, not deal terms.

Value, meanwhile, still flows through Animoca's private operations, including its Hong Kong stablecoin arm Anchorpoint Financial Limited. That channel is advancing independent of the failed merger. Anchorpoint was among the first issuers approved under HKMA licence FRS01—one of only two licence approvals among 36 applications submitted by September 30, 2025, alongside HSBC—and on August 12, 2026 it launched Phase One Beta Access for its HKDAP stablecoin, a 1:1 HKD-pegged token, distributed exclusively through institutional channels HashKey and OSL under the HK Stablecoins Ordinance that took effect August 1, 2025. HashKey joined the Beta Access rollout on August 13, 2026, expanding institutional reach. A full mint-transfer-redemption lifecycle test on Ethereum L1, run with OSL and PantherTrade, confirmed the token can be fully retired without reserve depletion after a confirmed 1:1 reserve backing—the first live movement of HKDAP since regulatory approval.

Counter-Signal and Unresolved Uncertainty

That stablecoin momentum is a counter-signal to a pure reading of the merger pause. Anchorpoint's regulated asset-channel is functioning and scaling past pilots—but with no disclosed circulation, user count, or transaction volume, its revenue contribution to Animoca remains unquantified. Citi's June projection of a $5.5 trillion tokenized-securities market by 2030, with an estimated ~$1 trillion potential increase in stablecoin-linked demand, offers an upside benchmark, not a current earnings line. Notably, that bullish framing is qualified by a parallel caution: Circle's share price fell roughly 20% on August 10, 2026 amid regulatory pressure on stablecoin yield structures—evidence that the stablecoin growth thesis still carries regulatory tail risk.

The mutual framing masks an asymmetric position. Animoca describes the pause as aligned with a compliance-driven listing strategy; Currenc describes it as a timing mismatch. One party needed the deal more than the other, and that difference will surface if market conditions shift.

Monitoring indicators tied to the thesis:

• Delivery date of Animoca's FY 2024 and FY 2025 audited statements (signal of listing-readiness).
• Any revival of the Currenc merger or filing of a direct IPO prospectus with a major exchange.
• HKDAP circulation and transaction-volume disclosures ahead of the planned retail phase in later 2026, plus ASIC's disposition of outstanding compliance matters.