Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has agreed to acquire Magic Labs’ embedded digital-asset wallet business, according to a report from The Block. Magic Labs will sell the unit to Payward, and once the transaction closes, customers using Magic Labs wallets will be migrated to Payward’s services.
The deal gives Kraken’s corporate owner a larger foothold in wallet infrastructure, a part of the crypto market that sits close to user onboarding and transaction access. Embedded wallets are built into apps and services, which makes them a key piece of plumbing for firms that want to keep users inside a single product experience.
After the sale closes, Magic Labs will rebrand as Newton Labs and shift its focus to Newton Protocol, or NEWT. That protocol is set to be the company’s main development track going forward, separate from the wallet business it is selling.
Newton Labs said its first product will be VaultKit, an institutional asset vault management solution. The company also plans to broaden Newton Protocol into real-world asset tokenization, stablecoins, and AI agent-based commerce and finance.
For Kraken’s parent, the acquisition adds a wallet business that already serves customers, while Magic Labs exits that line and pivots to protocol development. The next item to watch is the closing of the transaction and the handover of wallet users to Payward’s services.
Kraken owner Payward to buy Magic Labs wallet business, expanding user access
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, agreed to buy Magic Labs’ wallet business, which helps apps let users store and transact with digital assets; after the deal closes, those wallet customers will move to Payward’s services. Magic Labs will rebrand as Newton Labs and focus on developing Newton Protocol instead of running the wallet business.