MoonPay Acquires Dawn Labs to Expand Embedded Crypto Trading Infrastructure

MoonPay announced on May 11, 2026, the acquisition of Dawn Labs, an applied research lab focused on artificial intelligence and financial markets. Alongside the deal, MoonPay launched Dawn CLI, an AI-native tool that lets users describe trading strategies in plain English and converts them into executable code. Dawn Labs was founded in 2025 by Neeraj Prasad, an MIT-trained engineer with experience at Waymo, Microsoft, Citadel, and Reservoir Labs.

Prasad and the full Dawn team join MoonPay, with Prasad taking the role of Chief Engineer of MoonPay Labs. Dawn CLI automates research, code generation, backtesting, and live trade execution on supported venues. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The deal is part of MoonPay's broader push to build AI-native infrastructure for financial services.