Kraken parent company Payward acquires Magic Labs' embedded wallet business as firm rebrands to Newton Labs

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is acquiring Magic Labs' embedded wallet business in an asset sale. Following the transaction, Magic Labs will rebrand to Newton Labs to focus on the Newton Protocol, an authorization layer for onchain finance that entered mainnet beta in June 2026. Meanwhile, the deal marks another major expansion for Payward, which recently acquired Bitnomial for up to $550 million and agreed to acquire Reap Technologies for $600 million.

Payward acquires embedded wallet business

• ▪Magic Labs has created more than 60 million wallets since its founding in 2018 and supports over 200,000 developers.
• ▪Following the transaction, Magic Labs and Payward will remain separate, independent companies, and wallet customers will transition to Payward Services.
• ▪Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, agreed to acquire Magic Labs' embedded wallet business in an asset sale.

Magic Labs becomes Newton Labs

• ▪Magic Labs is rebranding to Newton Labs as part of a broader restructuring.
• ▪Newton Labs will focus exclusively on developing the Newton Protocol, an authorization layer for onchain finance.

Newton Protocol authorization layer

• ▪The Newton Protocol enforces compliance, security, and risk policies before transactions settle onchain, and entered mainnet beta in June 2026.
• ▪The Newton Protocol authorization layer will extend to real-world assets, stablecoins, and agentic commerce and finance.

VaultKit institutional compliance product

• ▪VaultKit is a composable set of policies that institutional-grade vaults use to enforce compliance, security, identity, and risk logic inside transactions before settlement.
• ▪VaultKit is Newton Labs' first product built on the Newton Protocol.

Payward's acquisition expansion strategy

• ▪Payward agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm Reap Technologies for $600 million.
• ▪Payward completed its acquisition of CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange Bitnomial in May 2026 for up to $550 million in cash and stock.
• ▪Payward acquired retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025.

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