Galaxy acquires institutional crypto custody firm for $44M

Galaxy Digital has invested $44 million into an institutional cryptocurrency custody platform to tap into its proprietary asset storage and management capabilities.

Mike Novogratz’s cryptocurrency investment firm has completed the acquisition of GK8, which has developed its own patent cryptocurrency custody technology aimed at giving secure asset management for institutional users.

The service specializes in providing cold vault technology that allows the execution of transactions without internet connectivity. Its in-house multi-party computation (MPC) vault provides the ability to automate transactions, and the service also provides access to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) networks, tokenization, NFT and trading.

A statement from Novogratz highlighted increased investor demand for custody services as a key reason behind the acquisition. GK8’s cold storage solutions and wallet technology will be onboarded into Galaxy Digital’s upcoming prime brokerage platform GalaxyOne.

The business deal will see Galaxy add an office in Tel Aviv to its organization, with nearly 40 GK8 employees becoming part of the wider group. GK8 founders Lior Lamesh and Shahar Shamai stay on through the acquisition to lead Galaxy’s custodial technologies offering.

Related: Mike Novogratz calls Helios a ‘transformative acquisition’ for Galaxy

GalaxyOne is touted to offer a broad range of cryptocurrency financial services to institutional-grade users on its launch. This will include trading, lending, derivatives, cross-portfolio margining as well as custodial offerings managed by GK8.

Galaxy doubled down on its investments into the cryptocurrency mining sector in December 2022, announcing a $65 million acquisition of Argo Blockchain’s main mining operation. The mining firm had to sell off its Helios mining facility to avoid bankruptcy during a tough year for the sector.