Kraken's parent company Payward acquires Magic Labs' embedded wallet business

According to The Block, Magic Labs has agreed to sell its embedded wallet business to cryptocurrency exchange Kraken's parent company Payward as part of a broader company restructuring, with Magic Labs simultaneously rebranding to Newton Labs. This transaction is in the form of an asset sale, and after the deal is completed, Magic Labs and Payward will continue to operate independently, with wallet customers being taken over by Payward Services.

Since its establishment in 2018, Magic Labs has created over 60 million wallets, supporting more than 200,000 developers. Newton Labs will focus on developing the Newton Protocol, which is an authorization layer for on-chain finance that executes compliance, security, and risk strategies before transactions are settled on-chain. The protocol entered the mainnet testing phase in June 2026. The first product based on the Newton Protocol, VaultKit, is a set of composable strategy tools for institutional-grade vaults.

This acquisition is another transaction in Payward's ongoing expansion of its financial infrastructure platform. Previously, the company completed the acquisition of the CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange Bitnomial for up to $550 million in cash and stock, and acquired the Hong Kong stablecoin payment company Reap Technologies for $600 million. In 2025, it also acquired the retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion.