Blockworks Acquires Messari to Build the Data Infrastructure Onchain Capital Markets Are Missing
Blockworks acquired Messari, combining coverage of 40,000 crypto assets with institutional disclosure infrastructure.
Crypto markets have grown to trillions of dollars without the standardised data infrastructure that makes assets professionally underwritable.
Blockworks acquired Messari, combining the two largest crypto data businesses into a single platform. The deal is the first major acquisition following Blockworks' Series A extension at a $192 million valuation, raised specifically to consolidate crypto's fragmented data market.
Blockworks Acquires Messari - Video News - The Bright Minded
What each side brings
Messari's eight-year data operation covers more than 40,000 crypto assets — token unlocks, fundraising activity, stablecoin flows, social sentiment, protocols, and market data. Its application programming interface (API) is standard infrastructure for funds, regulators, exchanges, and developers who need structured, real-time data to operate. Diran Li serves as Messari's chief executive.
Blockworks built the issuer side. Its Token Transparency Framework is a standardised disclosure system for onchain assets, presented to both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), with active integration conversations underway with major exchanges. Blockworks Investor Relations is the first full-stack investor relations platform for crypto, giving token issuers a structured channel to reach institutional investors.
The platform the acquisition creates
The combined entity connects both halves of onchain capital markets: issuers publishing trusted records through Blockworks' disclosure infrastructure, investors and regulators consuming those records through Messari's research, APIs, and data coverage. Co-founder Jason Yanowitz described the logic as self-reinforcing — the value of the data grows with every issuer that publishes, and the platform's importance to issuers grows with every investor that consumes from it.
Blockworks frames the consolidation as following the same pattern Wall Street's data infrastructure followed, concentrating into dominant platforms including S&P Global, Moody's, FactSet, and Bloomberg. The Token Transparency Framework and Messari's 40,000-asset coverage are the components of an answer to that missing layer, now under one roof.
Where AI agents enter the picture
The acquisition is also a bet on who consumes this data next. Blockworks identifies AI agents as among the fastest-growing consumers of crypto market data — consistent with how AI agents are moving through financial infrastructure more broadly. Yanowitz's argument is that legacy markets required large analyst headcount to produce ratings, research, and due diligence. In crypto, the raw material is already digital, structured, and real-time — an AI agent consuming Messari's API can process thousands of assets in the time a human analyst spends on one.
That efficiency depends on the underlying data being trusted, which is what the Token Transparency Framework is built to establish at the issuer level. The DTCC's parallel move into blockchain-based settlement infrastructure for traditional securities approaches the same problem from the institutional side. The fintech stack connecting issuers, investors, and AI-native workflows is being assembled in pieces. The Blockworks-Messari combination is the first consolidation move on the crypto data side of that work.
Core Messari products and coverage continue under the combined company, with development focused on data depth, API reliability, investor relations tooling, and compliance workflows.
Editor's note
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