Payward acquires Magic Labs’ embedded wallet business as Kraken parent’s M&A spree accelerates

Kraken’s parent company Payward has picked up Magic Labs’ embedded wallet business, adding yet another acquisition to what is shaping up to be one of the most aggressive M&A runs in crypto this year.

Magic Labs, the company behind a wallet SDK that has powered more than 50 million wallet creations, is offloading its wallet arm and rebranding as Newton Labs. The new entity will pivot toward onchain finance infrastructure, including chain unification protocols and AI-driven asset management tools.

## Payward’s buying spree shows no signs of slowing

This Magic Labs deal lands on top of a string of acquisitions that already includes Backed Finance, Magna, and the completion of a $550M purchase of Bitnomial.

The financial terms of the Magic Labs wallet deal haven’t been disclosed. But context helps frame the target’s scale. Magic Labs previously raised $52 million in a round led by PayPal Ventures, which speaks to the kind of institutional confidence the company’s wallet infrastructure attracted before Payward came knocking.

## Newton Labs and the pivot to onchain finance

Newton Labs is building what it calls the Newton protocol, focused on chain unification. The protocol is designed to tackle liquidity fragmentation across dozens of networks.

The company is also pursuing AI-driven asset management and a suite of developer tools for modernizing digital asset interactions. Newton Labs has flagged a collaboration with Polygon’s AggLayer as part of its cross-chain strategy.

There are no tokens directly tied to either the transaction or Newton Labs’ core products, according to current reporting.

## What vertical integration means for the market

Look at the specific capabilities Payward has assembled just through its 2026 deals. Bitnomial gives it regulated derivatives infrastructure. Backed Finance adds tokenized real-world assets. Magna provides token management and vesting tools. And now Magic Labs contributes embedded wallet technology with proven scale at over 50 million wallet creations.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.