Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has agreed to acquire the wallet-as-a-service business of Magic Labs. The deal is structured as an asset sale: Magic Labs and Payward remain separate, independent companies after closing, with wallet customers transitioning to Payward Services. The business changing hands has powered more than 60 million wallets and over $10 billion in stablecoin volume for over 200,000 developers. No purchase price was disclosed by either company.
We’ve agreed to acquire Magic Labs’ wallet-as-a-service business, bringing embedded, non-custodial wallet infra to Payward Services.
Magic has powered 60M+ wallets and $10B+ in stablecoin volume for 200K+ developers.https://t.co/ZCvIxEMUXa
— Payward (@Payward) July 27, 2026
Magic Labs’ Strategic Pivot
The seller isn’t disappearing. Magic Labs is rebranding as Newton Labs to focus entirely on Newton Protocol, an authorization layer for onchain finance that enforces compliance, security, and risk policies before transactions settle. The protocol entered mainnet beta in June 2026, and its first product, VaultKit, gives institutional vaults a composable set of compliance and risk policies. In the company’s own framing, the sale isn’t a retreat from wallets so much as a bet that the more durable business is the compliance layer sitting on top of them.
Magic Labs is becoming Newton Labs.
Our wallet business, 60M+ wallets strong, has a new home at @Payward @krakenfx.
Our focus is now: the authorization layer for onchain finance. Follow @newton_xyz for more.
Read the full story by @TheBlockCo: https://t.co/CL8RCkF4F2
— Magic Labs (@magic_labs) July 27, 2026
Payward’s Acquisition Strategy
This is at least the fourth disclosed acquisition by Payward in roughly six months, each adding a distinct B2B layer to what the company calls a single integration point for partners:
| Deal | Announced | Value |
|---|---|---|
| NinjaTrader (futures) | 2025 | $1.5 billion |
| Magna (token management) | February 2026 | Undisclosed |
| Bitnomial (derivatives) | April 2026 | Up to $550 million |
| Reap (payments/stablecoin) | May 2026, closed July 2026 | Up to $600 million |
| Magic Labs (embedded wallets) | July 2026 | Undisclosed |
Exactly half of Payward’s last four B2B acquisitions have been announced without a disclosed purchase price, with Magna and Magic Labs joining Bitnomial and Reap as part of the company’s broader infrastructure expansion strategy.
Why It Matters
What’s different this time is the layer itself. Derivatives, payments, and token management are backend plumbing: infrastructure a partner integrates but a consumer never sees. Embedded wallets sit at the point where an end user actually touches the product. That makes this the first deal in the string that moves Payward Services from purely B2B infrastructure into a component that shapes user-facing product experiences for its partners. It’s also, notably, one of the two recent deals where Payward didn’t put a number on it: the same pattern as Magna, and a break from how it announced Bitnomial and Reap.
Potential Impact
Folded into Payward Services, the wallet layer lets partners offer self-custody and onchain product experiences without assembling a separate vendor. Whether that’s worth the acquisition it took to get there is a question only the undisclosed price could answer. Payward has also been reported as having filed confidentially for an IPO; a steady acquisition cadence without disclosed deal sizes is a detail worth watching as that process moves forward, though nothing here confirms the two are directly connected.
What’s Next
The transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks. Whether Payward discloses terms after close, as it has for some deals and not others, will be the next thing to check.
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