S&P Global has agreed to acquire OpenZeppelin, a smart contract security firm, subject to closing conditions. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, and S&P said it does not expect the deal to materially affect its financial results.
OpenZeppelin will maintain its name, leadership, and open-source code following the acquisition. Demian Brener will continue leading the company as an independent business unit within S&P Global Ratings, reporting to Yann Le Pallec, president of S&P Global Ratings.
The company said more than $37 trillion in value has been transferred through its Contracts software since 2015. OpenZeppelin Contracts currently uses the MIT License, which grants broad rights to use, copy, modify, and distribute the software. The firm committed that released versions will remain open source permanently.
S&P Global plans to provide OpenZeppelin with access to its research capacity, market data, institutional reach, and additional resources. OpenZeppelin's security audits, engineering work, and ecosystem programs are expected to continue with the same team.
The acquisition places crypto infrastructure security expertise within S&P Global Ratings, which also includes the ratings agency S&P Global Ratings. However, the deal does not guarantee that paid products' pricing, features, or usage limits will remain unchanged. OpenZeppelin's terms of service permit certain changes to paid or hosted plans, including pricing, features, quotas, and usage limits, with protections and notice depending on the type of change.
