S&P Global has agreed to acquire blockchain security company OpenZeppelin as the financial data and ratings provider expands its digital asset business into smart contract and onchain technology risk assessment.
According to S&P Global’s Sept. 17 announcement, the transaction is expected to complement its existing risk assessment and digital asset capabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the acquisition remains subject to closing conditions.
OpenZeppelin will continue operating under its existing name as a separate S&P Global business unit. CEO Demian Brener will remain in charge of the company and report to S&P Global Ratings President Yann Le Pallec.
S&P Global said the transaction is not expected to have a material effect on its financial results.
Founded in 2015, OpenZeppelin develops open source smart contract software and provides security assessments and development services for blockchain protocols and financial institutions.
Its OpenZeppelin Contracts library has been used in infrastructure that has handled more than $37 trillion in transferred value, including systems supporting major stablecoins and tokenized funds. The company has completed more than 900 security engagements and said its work has identified over 10,000 vulnerabilities before projects reached production.
OpenZeppelin’s security work extends across blockchain networks, decentralized finance protocols and traditional financial institutions. An OpenZeppelin review of TxFlow’s bridge infrastructure recently found no critical or high severity issues, while one medium severity issue was resolved during the audit process.
The acquisition would give S&P Global direct access to that smart contract security expertise as the company builds products for financial markets moving onto blockchain infrastructure.
“Our digital assets strategy centers on bringing trusted data, benchmarks and transparent risk assessment to markets as they move onchain,” Le Pallec said.
He said OpenZeppelin’s technology and expertise would complement S&P Global’s smart contract and onchain technology risk assessment capabilities as digital assets and tokenized markets develop.
Brener said OpenZeppelin’s technology already supports infrastructure behind stablecoins, tokenized funds, DeFi protocols and other onchain markets. Joining S&P Global would bring that work to more organizations entering digital asset markets, according to the CEO.
OpenZeppelin said its open source products will remain available following the acquisition, including the Contracts libraries used by blockchain developers.
Every released version of the library will remain open source permanently, while future versions will continue to be released under the same model. The commitment extends to the company’s other open source applications and tools.
Existing security audits, engineering work and ecosystem programs are expected to continue with the same team. OpenZeppelin said the combination would give its business access to S&P Global’s research, market data and institutional network.
Security has remained a major issue across digital asset markets as institutions move more financial products and infrastructure onchain.
Crypto.news previously reported that crypto security losses reached $1.1 billion across 212 verified incidents during the first half of 2026, according to Blockaid. The security company described the number of incidents during the six month period as a record and said 74% of stolen funds resulted from operational security failures instead of exploited smart contract code.
Institutional security practices have been changing alongside those losses. Research published in July found that investors were increasingly looking beyond one time smart contract audits and seeking continuous monitoring for risks involving keys, signers and other infrastructure.
Compromised keys, signers and infrastructure accounted for 88.3% of approximately $764 million stolen during the second quarter, according to figures cited in the institutional security report. Only 4% of tracked projects combined audits, active bug bounty programs and third party monitoring.
OpenZeppelin co founder Manuel Aráoz raised separate concerns about DeFi security in May, when he said advances in coding agents had changed the balance between attackers and developers. Aráoz said he had advised friends and family to exit DeFi positions, including exposure to established lending protocols, as smart contract security concerns intensified following a series of exploits.
The OpenZeppelin agreement follows another digital asset deal announced by S&P Global earlier this week.
On Sept. 14, the company led a strategic investment in Paris based crypto market data provider Kaiko, extending its Series B funding round to $110 million. BNP Paribas, Coinbase Ventures, Nasdaq Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, Stellar and several other financial and crypto companies participated.
Kaiko plans to use the capital to develop its market data business and infrastructure for onchain capital markets. The company currently supplies data covering more than 150 exchanges and protocols.
S&P Global and Kaiko had already worked together before the investment. Earlier in September, the companies launched the S&P Kaiko Digital Asset Indices, combining their crypto index products into a co branded suite.
Their work has extended to tokenized traditional financial benchmarks. In April, S&P Dow Jones Indices and Kaiko announced plans to tokenize the iBoxx U.S. Treasuries index on Canton Network through smart contract infrastructure that incorporates index data, licensing conditions, intellectual property rights, fees and access controls.
The $110 million Kaiko round brought more financial institutions into the company’s shareholder base while S&P Global continued developing its presence in digital asset data and benchmarks.
S&P Global has been building risk assessment products for digital assets separately from those investments. Its Stablecoin Stability Assessments evaluate stablecoins based on factors including reserve assets, governance, liquidity and regulatory considerations.
Through a partnership with Chainlink announced in October 2025, S&P Global made its stablecoin risk assessments available onchain, initially through Coinbase’s Base network. The assessments use a scale ranging from 1, or strong, to 5, or weak, and are distinct from the company’s credit ratings.
S&P Global Ratings extended its work around tokenized financial products in August when it assigned an AAAm principal stability fund rating to BlackRock’s new tokenized money market fund. The BlackRock reserve fund held $50 million and maintained a $1 net asset value shortly after launch, with its portfolio limited to cash, short term U.S. Treasuries and overnight repurchase agreements secured by Treasury instruments.
The OpenZeppelin transaction would bring security technology and smart contract expertise into the same digital asset business as S&P Global’s existing data, benchmarks and risk assessment work.
Jefferies is serving as S&P Global’s financial adviser on the acquisition, while Clifford Chance is acting as its legal adviser. FT Partners is serving as OpenZeppelin’s exclusive financial and strategic adviser, with Cooley acting as legal adviser.
