Payments Giant Stripe to Acquire Crypto Wallet Tech Firm Privy

Crypto wallet infrastructure company Privy has agreed to be acquired by payments giant Stripe, the two companies announced on Wednesday. 

The acquisition, which is expected to close in the coming weeks, will bring Privy under the Stripe umbrella, but allow it to continue operating as an independent product. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Money has to reside somewhere, and Privy builds the world’s best programmable vaults,” Stripe CEO Patrick Collison posted on X (formerly Twitter). “Alongside our other stablecoin work, we’re looking forward to enabling a new generation of global, internet-native financial services.”

Active crypto users participating with consumer applications have likely already interacted with Privy, without even knowing it.

Best known for its embedded wallet technology, Privy allows developers to build simpler onboarding experiences, like letting users create crypto wallets without the complexity of memorizing or recording seed phrases. 

Additionally, Privy’s embedded wallets let users hold assets or take actions directly within supported crypto apps, instead of needing to connect a third-party wallet like MetaMask to perform transactions. 

In just three years, Privy’s technologies have become widely adopted across the industry, supporting more than 75 million accounts and 1,000 developer teams, the firm said—including major crypto applications like Pump.fun, Hyperliquid, OpenSea, and more. 

By joining Stripe, it plans to accelerate that pace even more.

“Today, digital ownership and the financial systems that run the modern world are intersecting as never before,” the firm wrote Wednesday. “Like us, Stripe believes in the power of bringing crypto and fiat closer together, marrying these systems so deeply that the distinction becomes almost meaningless.” 

“Joining Stripe will accelerate our work to shape this future and provide powerful new capabilities to Stripe and Privy customers alike,” it continued. “Together, we can change how value moves through the internet.”

The acquisition is another piece of Stripe’s further entwinement with crypto, having announced plans for stablecoin financial accounts in May.

In October, the payments firm acquired stablecoin payment platform Bridge for $1.1 billion after integrating Avalanche’s layer-1 blockchain earlier in the year. 

Stipe was among the first payment companies to accept Bitcoin back in 2014, but it shuttered its service in 2018 before returning its focus to crypto last year. 

A representative for Privy did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. A Stripe representative pointed to Collison’s X thread as the firm’s official comment.

Edited by Andrew Hayward