On stage, co-founder and CEO JP Richardson opened by speaking in regards to the firm’s derailment on the New York Inventory Trade in Could 2024, when Exodus flew 130 staff, pals, and household to Manhattan solely to be taught the night time earlier than that regulators had pulled its itemizing.
He described the reversal as a rule change at “the eleventh hour” that left a room of supporters surprised and compelled the corporate again into non-public standing regardless of having, in his telling, adopted the playbook.
That episode ended months later after the U.S. election, when Exodus lastly listed on NYSE American in January with the identical group, ticker, and enterprise, however below a brand new administration extra open to digital asset corporations.
Richardson framed that saga as proof that Exodus can soak up political and regulatory shock whereas holding to a single precept: cash belongs below person management.
Exodus, based in 2015 in Omaha, constructed a self-custodial pockets that shops keys on person units and routes swaps throughout a number of liquidity suppliers, providing entry to Bitcoin and different belongings with out ever holding buyer funds in firm accounts.
Fixing the “pub check” and app sprawl
The CEO argued that crypto nonetheless fails regular customers on primary usability. He recounted an early expertise serving to a good friend obtain 4 completely different wallets and write a 12-word seed phrase on a cocktail serviette, a ritual he mentioned nonetheless defines too many merchandise a decade later. Richardson known as this the “pub check”: if a good friend in a bar can not safely arrange a pockets with out resorting to napkins, the trade has missed the mark.
He prolonged that critique to chain tribalism, insisting that customers don’t care whether or not funds decide on Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Base so long as the expertise works.
To make the purpose concrete, he requested the viewers to drag out their telephones and rely what number of apps they use for cash. The everyday display, he mentioned, reveals a financial institution app, person-to-person cost apps, a brokerage account, and infrequently a separate crypto pockets.
He solid this fragmentation as a structural drawback that leaves shoppers juggling suppliers who don’t share their pursuits.
Exodus needs to exchange that cluster with “one app” that holds digital belongings, connects to card networks, and routes funds whereas holding customers in self-custody.
Proudly owning the rails: Monavate, Baanx and Exodus Pay
A central reveal on the summit was the closing of the Monavate and Baanx UK acquisitions, a transfer that shifts Exodus from “renting the rails to proudly owning them,” in Richardson’s phrase.
Monavate and Baanx provide regulated card issuing, buying, and processing infrastructure within the UK and EU, together with BIN sponsorship, Visa and MasterCard membership, and fraud techniques that already help crypto manufacturers resembling Ledger and MetaMask.
Exodus beforehand agreed to accumulate their mother or father, W3C Corp, in a roughly $175 million deal geared toward constructing an on-chain funds stack; the corporate later enforced a $70 million secured mortgage in opposition to that group in UK receivership to guard its place.
With these belongings, Exodus positive aspects the power to concern and course of playing cards immediately moderately than appearing as a program that rides on third-party rails.
CFO James Gernetzke mentioned the mixed platform now helps six layers of exercise, from the core pockets and swap engine to stablecoin issuance, card packages, and banking rails, giving Exodus “proprietor economics” on every step of a transaction.
On stage, he walked by way of a £100 buy instance, explaining that the place Exodus as soon as retained a fraction of the economics as a shopper of Monavate and Baanx, it now captures a bigger share by way of interchange, processing charges, and curiosity on float.
Richardson and Gernetzke each made it clear that Exodus is attempting to develop previous a buying and selling‑centric mannequin after a peak yr in 2025, when it generated $121.6 million in income and $11 million in adjusted EBITDA on a base of roughly 1.5 to 1.6 million month-to-month lively customers.
In early 2026, the boundaries of that dependence on crypto cycles got here into sharper focus: preliminary first‑quarter outcomes present income falling to $22.7 million from $36.0 million a yr earlier, a $36.4 million internet loss on digital belongings, and a 22% quarter‑over‑quarter drop in trade quantity to $1.18 billion, whilst month-to-month lively customers held at 1.5 million and funded customers slipped to 1.4 million.
Gernetzke described the tight correlation between buying and selling income and Bitcoin’s worth as a ceiling the corporate wants to interrupt.
Exodus Pay, now stay in all 50 states, is the clearest expression of that technique. Embedded within the core pockets, it lets customers spend USD‑backed stablecoins, Bitcoin, and different belongings anyplace Visa or Apple Pay works, whereas holding keys in self‑custody and turning each checkout into interchange, processing, and float revenue.
Later within the Summit at a hearth chat, Richardson solid that stack as infrastructure not just for right now’s customers however for AI brokers that may execute autonomous funds throughout the identical rails.