Galaxy Digital recently spent $44 million to purchase the GK8, an institutional crypto custody platform provider, in an effort to better its asset storage and management abilities. Galaxy, a crypto investment firm, has now officially finalized the details of the acquisition of GK8, which had created its own patent custody technology geared towards providing institutional users with secure asset management capabilities.
The service focuses on delivering cold vault technology which enables the execution of financial transactions without needing to be connected to the internet. A multi-party computation vault gives the ability to automatize financial transactions, while the service additionally delivers accessibility to Decentralized Finance networks, tokenization, NFTs, and crypto trading.
A statement coming from Galaxy owner Mike Novogratz, the company head spoke of an increase in demand for custody services, citing that demand as the primary reason for the acquisition. Soon, GK8’s cold storage solutions and electronic wallet technology will be integrated into Galaxy Digital’s forthcoming GalaxyOne brokerage platform.
The acquisition will result in Galaxy adding an office location in Tel Aviv. Approximately 40 GK8 staff members will be joining Galaxy. Lior Lamesh and Shahar Shamai, the founders of GK8, will remain on throughout the acquisition process to assist Galaxy with its custodial technologies’ integration and launch.
Upon its launch, GalaxyOne will be offering a wide range of crypto-based financial services to institutional users. These will consist of trading, lending, derivatives, and more. There will also be custodial offerings which will be managed by GK8.
Galaxy has pushed forward with its investments in the mining sector, purchasing Argo Blockchain’s primary mining operation this past December. The crypto mining firm was forced to sell its Helios facility so as to avoid being forced to file for bankruptcy protections during what would be a very tough year for the digital asset sector.