Kraken Parent Company Payward Acquires Magic Labs Embedded Wallet Business

Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has acquired the embedded wallet business of Magic Labs. This transaction is structured as an asset sale, with Magic Labs and Payward continuing to operate as separate entities. Wallet customers will transition to Payward Services following the acquisition.

Magic Labs will subsequently rebrand to Newton Labs, focusing on its Newton Protocol. The protocol is an authorization layer for onchain finance, designed to enforce compliance, security, and risk policies before transaction settlement. It entered mainnet beta in June 2026.

Newton Labs, founded in 2018 as Magic Labs, has developed over 60 million wallets and supports more than 200,000 developers. CEO Sean Li stated that this transition allows the company to focus on the Newton Protocol, with the wallet business transferred to a dedicated customer service team.

The first product built on the Newton Protocol is VaultKit, a set of policies for institutional-grade vaults. VaultKit enforces compliance, security, identity, and risk logic within transactions before settlement. The authorization layer is also intended for real-world assets, stablecoins, and agentic commerce and finance.

This acquisition by Payward is part of its ongoing expansion of its financial infrastructure platform. Earlier acquisitions include the CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange Bitnomial in May for up to $550 million in cash and stock.

Payward also has a $600 million agreement to acquire the Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm Reap Technologies. In 2025, Payward acquired the retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion.