Nium buys Cypher to add crypto-native wallet and issuing expertise

Cross-border payments company Nium announced the acquisition of Cypher on 8 July. Cypher builds a non-custodial wallet and card-issuing products for crypto users. Nium said the deal would add experience developing products for crypto-native customers as the payments firm expands stablecoin funding and settlement across its network. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cypher founder Kuberan Marimuthu joined Nium as vice-president of digital assets, and Cypher’s engineering team also moved to the company. Nium framed the acquisition as a way to connect its regulated cross-border payments infrastructure with on-chain services. The announcement does not detail a product migration or release timetable. For customers, the strategic question is whether Nium can combine card issuance, fiat transfers and crypto wallet flows while keeping the custody and compliance responsibilities of each service clear.