Ratings giant S&P Global acquires OpenZeppelin in tokenized finance risk push

Founded in 2015, OpenZeppelin provides onchain security assessments and secure development services, alongside an open-source smart contract library used by many of the largest stablecoins and tokenized funds. It has conducted more than 900 security engagements surfacing over 10,000 vulnerabilities before code reached production, S&P said. Co-founder and CEO Demian Brener will continue to lead the business as its own unit under the OpenZeppelin name, reporting to Le Pallec.

S&P has been building out digital-asset coverage for more than a year, publishing stablecoin stability assessments and issuing the first credit rating of a DeFi protocol, Sky. OpenZeppelin extends that work from rating the entity to rating the code it runs on.

The deal follows a run of digital-asset moves by the roughly $120 billion company. On Monday it led a strategic investment that extended crypto data firm Kaiko’s Series B to $110 million, joined by BNP Paribas, Nasdaq Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Royal Bank of Canada. Earlier in September S&P Dow Jones Indices and Kaiko launched a co-branded digital asset index suite, and in March the two tokenized the iBoxx U.S. Treasuries Index.

The transaction is subject to closing conditions and is not expected to have a material impact on S&P Global's financial results.