Fintech giant PayPal has revealed it has agreed to acquired Israel-based cryptocurrency custody firm Curv for less than $200 million. The deal is expected to close in the first half of this year.
According to an announcement shared by PayPal, the payments giant plans to use the purchase to “accelerate and expand its initiatives to support cryptocurrencies and digital assets.”
The announcement quotes Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s vice president and general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies, saying:
The acquisition of Curv is part of our effort to invest in the talent and technology to realize our vision for a more inclusive financial system. During our conversations with Curv’s team, we’ve been impressed by their technical talent, entrepreneurial spirit, and the thinking behind the technology they’ve built in the last few years.
Itay Malinger, co-founder of Curv, said that as the adoption of digital assets accelerates, the firm feels there’s “no better home than PayPal to continue our journey of innovation.” According to CNBC, the deal will be worth less than $200 million, and comes months after PayPal affirmed its commitment to the cryptocurrency segment.
It partnered with Paxos to start letting users on its platform buy, sell, and hold cryptoassets. While the service is limited to BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC and is only available in the U.S., the company is set to expand it to the United Kingdom soon.
The payments giant was said to be on the hunt for a crypto custody acquisition for a few months, and was reported to have approached BitGo for as much as $750 million, but the deal fell through. Curv uses multi-party computation for its cryptoasset security, relying on math and code to secure funds.
The approach is similar to the one used by Fireblocks, which is reportedly working with the oldest bank of the United States, Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK), which is also rolling out a crypto custody service.
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