Payments Company Bolt to Buy Wyre for $1.5B to Add Crypto Option

Bolt, a payments company providing one-click checkout services, agreed to buy Wyre Payments for $1.5 billion to add support for crypto transactions in one of the largest crypto-industry takeovers among those not involving a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

• The acquisition, expected to close later this year, would see the two firms power the industry's first one-click cryptocurrency checkout, Bolt announced Thursday.
• Bolt, based in San Francisco, provides online checkout services and raised $355 million in January giving it an $11 billion valuation. Its one-click checkout is designed to allow its merchant clients to provide a fast and efficient user experience, similar to one that customers can experience on Amazon.
• Wyre, also based in San Francisco, develops software to support blockchain-based payments. Last year it connected to the Visa network allowing users to move money between crypto and fiat currency.
• The acquisition will allow Bolt's retailers to accept crypto as payment for goods and services as well allowing for the purchase of non-fungible tokens (NFT) through Bolt using Wyre's APIs, or application programming interfaces.
• The integration of a crypto payment option has been in Bolt's plans for several years.
• "When I wrote the draft business plan for Bolt, I had always imagined cryptocurrency at its center," founder and Executive Chairman Ryan Breslow said in the statement. That was in 2015.
• The price is larger than the $1.2 billion Galaxy Digital agreed to pay for crypto custodian BitGo in May of last year.
• The takeover was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

Read more: BitPay Merchants to Get a Boost From Lightning Network Payment Integration

UPDATE (April 7, 11:03 UTC): Adds background on Bolt, previous record acquisition; changes source of news.

UPDATE (April 7, 11:36 UTC): Rewrites first paragraph; adds detail on companies' businesses, quote from Bolt founder.