Kraken's Parent Just Swallowed a Wallet Factory — 60M Wallets Now Belong to Payward 🐙

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has agreed to acquire the wallet-as-a-service business of Magic Labs, folding its non-custodial wallet technology into Payward's growing enterprise infrastructure stack. The companies announced the deal on Monday, saying the transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition will see Magic Labs' embedded wallet infrastructure integrated into Payward Services, the firm's business-to-business platform that already offers crypto trading, custody, tokenized assets and fiat on- and off-ramps. By adding embedded wallets, Payward said businesses will be able to offer self-custodied wallets directly inside their own applications through a single integration, rather than relying on third-party wallet providers.

Magic Labs said its infrastructure has been used to create more than 60 million non-custodial wallets for over 200,000 developers and has facilitated more than $10 billion in stablecoin transactions. The company's tools allow clients to spin up wallet functionality without having to build custody stacks from scratch, a capability Payward intends to fold into its broader product suite.

Following the sale, Magic Labs said it will concentrate on Newton, a platform designed to help users and applications securely authorize and verify onchain transactions without depending on centralized intermediaries. The move sharpens Magic Labs' focus on authentication and verification tooling while offloading its wallet-building business to Payward.

The deal lands as demand for onchain financial services among enterprises continues to expand, with incumbents and crypto-native firms alike racing to bundle custody, trading and payments into integrated stacks. Payward's acquisition adds a developer-facing wallet layer to a portfolio that already spans consumer exchange operations through Kraken and institutional services through Payward Services.