Cyclops

Cyclops, a stablecoin and crypto infrastructure platform built exclusively for payments companies, was founded by payments executives and crypto veterans, including Alex Wilson and Pat Duffy, who previously led The Giving Block and its acquisition by Shift4. The company emerged from their frustration with stablecoin fragmentation, aiming to provide an all-in-one orchestration layer with end-to-end integrations across settlement, payins, payouts, and treasury optimization. A key early milestone was an $8 million funding round with participation from Castle Island Ventures, validating the platform's approach and enabling initial product buildouts and partner integrations. The most significant long-term node came with a $20 million Series A led by Nava Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Circle, and others. This round marked Cyclops' transition from stealth to public visibility, allowing it to scale its licensing network—over 100 global licenses—and expand its go-to-market team. The Series A underscored the platform's strategic importance as regulatory clarity from GENIUS and MiCA drove demand, positioning Cyclops as a critical infrastructure layer for payments companies seeking to adopt stablecoins without building in-house capabilities. These funding events represent not just capital raises but inflection points in the company's trajectory, enabling product redundancy, multi-regional licensing, and the operational scale needed to serve the payments industry's shift toward instant, 24/7 settlement.

On 4 March 2026 Cyclops closed an $8 million seed round and began commercial operations, with backing from Coinbase Ventures, Circle and others. On 15 July 2026 it added a $20 million Series A led by Nava Ventures, with Castle Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Circle, Lasagna Ventures and GPT Ventures participating, taking total disclosed funding to $28 million in four months. The company gives payment firms stablecoin acceptance, cross-border payouts and settlement orchestration through a single API. Customers include Shift4 Payments and Mastercard, and the platform already supports all-hours settlement for Blade helicopter travel and Blue Origin.

Cyclops' transaction volume has grown about 350% month over month since launch, with more than $2 billion processed across over 100 licensed jurisdictions. The 31-person team draws heavily on Shift4 and Mastercard veterans and is expected to double by the end of 2026.

Future strategy and roadmap: Cyclops plans to add more bank and onchain liquidity connectors, push settlement latency down to minutes, and enter Latin American and Asia-Pacific trade payment corridors in the second half of 2026 while expanding licensing and compliance coverage.

Alex Wilson — Co-founder & Co-CEO; co-founded crypto fundraising platform The Giving Block with Pat Duffy in 2018, and after its 2022 acquisition by Shift4 served as Head of Crypto there; named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Social Impact.

Pat Duffy — Co-founder & Co-CEO; serial entrepreneur recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and as one of CoinDesk's 100 Most Influential People in Crypto.

David Johnson — Co-founder & President; spent over a decade advising Fortune 100 technology deals at Pillsbury before co-founding BlockShop, Washington DC's first crypto and blockchain startup incubator.

Lindsay Wysocki — Chief Operating Officer.

Dan Savitt — US Chief Compliance Officer; former Global Chief Compliance Officer at Coinbase.