Gwyneth Paltrow, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, and others donate $87 million to the cryptocurrency company MoonPay

A cryptocurrency payments business called MoonPay has received $87 million from more than 60 well-known backers, including Justin Bieber, Maria Sharapova, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashton Kutcher, and rap legend Snoop Dogg.

The money came from the cryptocurrency company’s Series A investment round, which was announced in November 2021 and valued the business at $3.4 billion. The Series A investment round, which was headed by Coatue and Tiger Global, received a combined $87 million from the new investors.

MoonPay, a Miami-based company founded in 2018, offers payment infrastructure for NFT and cryptocurrency exchanges. According to the company’s CEO, Ivan Soto-Wright, content producers will increasingly use NFTs to sell their work and boost fan engagement.

As a business model known as “crypto-as-a-service,” MoonPay also offers its patented technology to other companies like NFT marketplace OpenSea and cryptocurrency website Bitcoin.com.

Blockchain technology is used by non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs, to track who owns digital files like text, images, and videos.

According to Alex McDougall, managing director at 3iQ Digital Assets, over 600 cryptocurrency firms will have received over $12.5 billion in venture funding in 2022.