Bolt Financial Turns Back on its Plan to Acquire Wyre

San Francisco-based technology company Bolt Financial is no longer going further with its plan to acquire cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Wyre Payments Inc in a $1.5 billion deal. 

Considering the current market conditions, the dive in the crypto market, and the financial technology business, there are speculations that Bolt’s rethink could be an overpriced nature of the deal. 

Interestingly, the deal when it was first announced, was regarded as the largest non-special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) of a digital assets firm. 

Despite the pullout, both Wyre and Bolt have agreed to continue in partnership as independent businesses. According to Maju Kuruvilla, Chief Executive Officer at Bolt, 

“We will continue our existing commercial partnership with Wyre to pave the path of crypto integration into our ecosystem, bringing Wyre’s innovative crypto infrastructure to the world.”

In turn, this will help them deliver better results in their core areas of competence to their customers. 

Bolt Initial Merger Plans With Wyre

Bolt Financial announced its intention to acquire blockchain company, Wyre, in April. 

This was at a time when the public was seeking opportunities in Web3.0 and the demand to purchase products and services with cryptocurrencies was on the rise. Markedly, the deal was worth $1.5 billion, to be paid both in cash and in stock. From the arrangement, the merger was meant to close toward the end of the year. 

Initially, the plan had been to combine efforts to accelerate the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency as a payment option, especially amongst retailers and shoppers. 

Ordinarily, Wyre provides blockchain-connected payment APIs and fiat-to-crypto onramps, foreign exchange, and cryptocurrency liquidity to users of various crypto projects. The plan was to integrate Wyre’s APIs and Bolt’s one-click checkout to bring ease to shoppers.

Similarly to the deal pull-off, financial service firm Galaxy Digital decided to pull out of its plan to acquire BitGo, a crypto custody provider. In Galaxy’s argument, BitGo had failed to meet one of the deal’s requirements which was to deliver its audited financial statement from the previous year. In the same vein, Galaxy Digital is still on the outlook for more mergers and acquisitions.