Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. (TSX: GLXY), a financial services and investment management innovator in the digital asset, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology sectors, has completed its previously announced acquisition of substantially all of the assets of GK8, a secure institutional digital asset custody platform, for approximately $44 million.
By acquiring GK8’s suite of innovative custody technology and services, Galaxy aims to enhance how clients interact with and store digital assets. GK8’s patented technology puts custody of digital assets into the hands of the institutions that manage them. GK8’s technology also broadens ecosystem access by enabling staking, decentralized finance networks (DeFi), tokenization, NFT support, and trading services. GK8 provides these services through its patented Cold and MPC vaults allowing institutions to securely manage their digital assets. The Cold vault enables the execution of blockchain transactions without connecting to the internet, while the proprietary multi-party computation (MPC) vault enables automated transactions.
“Investor demand for innovative and secure custody services continues to grow, and the acquisition of GK8 enhances our efforts to offer clients best-in-class cold storage solutions along with cutting-edge wallet technology,” said Mike Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Galaxy. “In addition to continuing to offer highly valuable custody technology to clients, the GK8 team will play a pivotal role in our evolution to offer a full-service financial platform for digital assets.”
With the backing of Galaxy, GK8 will continue to develop and offer its digital asset custody solutions for institutions, including banks, trust companies, broker-dealers, and trading platforms. Galaxy also plans to incorporate GK8’s custodial technology into GalaxyOne, the Company’s previously announced prime brokerage platform. Once launched, GalaxyOne will provide the full suite of digital asset financial services to institutions, including trading, lending, derivatives, cross-portfolio margining, and several custodial options, including GK8’s custody solutions.
Additional benefits of the transaction for Galaxy include adding an office in Tel Aviv, expanding the company’s geographic reach, and bringing on a team of nearly 40 people, including cryptographers and blockchain engineers. The founders of GK8, CEO Lior Lamesh and CTO Shahar Shamai, have also joined to lead Galaxy’s custodial technologies offering.
“The closing of this transaction represents an exciting new chapter for GK8, our employees, and the institutions that rely on our best-in-class custody infrastructure and services,” said Lamesh. “Galaxy has built an impressive reputation as one of the most trusted and client-focused companies across the digital asset space, and we are thrilled to join the Galaxy team to help them deliver an unparalleled suite of offerings to institutional clients.”
About Galaxy Digital
Galaxy (TSX: GLXY) is a digital asset and blockchain leader providing institutions, startups, and qualified individuals access to the crypto economy. Our full suite of financial services is custom-made for a digitally native ecosystem, spanning multiple synergistic business lines: Trading, Asset Management, Investment Banking, Mining, and Ventures.
Galaxy’s CEO and Founder Michael Novogratz leads a team of crypto enthusiasts and institutional veterans working together on a mission to engineer a new economic paradigm. The Company is headquartered in New York City, with global offices across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Additional information about Galaxy’s businesses and products is available on www.galaxy.com.
For more information on GK8, visit www.gk8.io.
