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PayPal Confirms It's Buying Crypto Security Firm Curv

The payments giant said Curv will help it "accelerate and expand its initiatives to support cryptocurrencies and digital assets."

Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:22 p.m. Published Mar 8, 2021, 2:18 p.m.

PayPal said Monday it has agreed to acquire Israel-based Curv, a provider of cloud-based infrastructure for digital asset security.

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The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the payments giant said it plans to use its new purchase to "accelerate and expand its initiatives to support cryptocurrencies and digital assets."

CoinDesk first reported the acquisition was in progress on March 2.

"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," said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal's vice president and general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies.

"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. We're excited to welcome the Curv team to PayPal," he said.

Curv co-founder and CEO Itay Malinger said, "Now, as the adoption of digital assets accelerates, we feel there's no better home than PayPal to continue our journey of innovation."

PayPal said it expects the acquisition deal to be completed in the first half of this year.

PayPal's crypto push

PayPal, which partnered with New York state-regulated Paxos to offer buying and selling of cryptocurrency starting in October, was known to be on the hunt for a crypto custody acquisition. The payments giant was reported to have been in talks to buy BitGo for as much as $750 million, though the deal fell through.

Multi-party computation (MPC) shops like Curv and Fireblocks are in short supply in cryptoland – the latter is reportedly working on crypto custody with BNY Mellon.

For instance, Curv previously rebuffed an offer to be acquired by Facebook's crypto arm, Novi, according to a source with knowledge of that deal.

Curv is partnered with some notable crypto firms focused on Europe such as eToro and FalconX, suggesting PayPal is serious about spreading its crypto footprint outside the U.S., as well as offering a broader range of services.

As big banks look to partner up or "acqui-hire" on the custody front, the year ahead could see more crypto M&A from institutional players.

PayPal Acquisitions Curv

Ian Allison

Ian Allison is a senior reporter at CoinDesk, focused on institutional and enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He won the State Street Data and Innovation journalist of the year award in 2017, and was runner up the following year. He also earned CoinDesk an honourable mention in the 2020 SABEW Best in Business awards. His November 2022 FTX scoop, which brought down the exchange and its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, won a Polk award, Loeb award and New York Press Club award. Ian graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He holds ETH.

Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds is editor-in-chief at CoinDesk. Prior to joining the company in mid-2020, Reynolds spent 23 years at Bloomberg, where he won two CEO awards for moving the needle for the entire company and established himself as one of the world's leading experts in real-time financial news. In addition to having done almost every job in the newsroom, Reynolds built, scaled and ran products for every asset class, including First Word, a 250-person global news/analysis service for professional clients, as well as Bloomberg's Speed Desk and the training program that all Bloomberg News hires worldwide are required to take. He also turned around several other operations, including the company's flash headlines desk and was instrumental in the turnaround of Bloomberg's BGOV unit. He shares a patent for a content management system he helped design, is a Certified Scrum Master, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He owns bitcoin, ether, polygon and solana.