Kraken parent Payward acquires Magic Labs' embedded wallet business
Quick Take
- Magic Labs said Monday it agreed to sell its embedded wallet business to Payward, the parent company of Kraken.
- The company, which has created more than 60 million wallets since 2018, relaunched as Newton Labs to focus on Newton Protocol, its authorization layer for onchain finance.
Magic Labs has agreed to sell its embedded wallet business to Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, as part of a broader restructuring that sees the firm rebrand to Newton Labs.
The transaction is structured as an asset sale. Magic Labs and Payward will remain separate, independent companies following the close. Wallet customers will transition to Payward Services, while Magic Labs will operate as Newton Labs, according to a company statement shared with The Block on Monday.
Magic Labs has created more than 60 million wallets since its founding in 2018 and supports over 200,000 developers across consumer and institutional applications, per the statement.
The company said Newton Labs will focus exclusively on developing the Newton Protocol, an authorization layer for onchain finance that enforces compliance, security, and risk policies before transactions settle onchain. The protocol entered mainnet beta in June 2026.
"This transition allows us to put our full energy behind Newton, the authorization layer for onchain finance," Newton Labs CEO Sean Li said. He added the wallet business would move to a team focused on customer service.
Newton Labs' first product built on Newton Protocol is VaultKit, a composable set of policies that institutional-grade vaults use to enforce compliance, security, identity, and risk logic inside transactions before settlement, the company said.
The authorization layer will also extend to real-world assets, stablecoins, and agentic commerce and finance, Magic Labs said.
Meanwhile, the acquisition continues a string of deals for Payward as it expands its financial infrastructure platform. Payward completed its acquisition of CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange Bitnomial in May for up to $550 million in cash and stock, following a $600 million agreement to acquire Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm Reap Technologies.
The company also acquired retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025.
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