Celsius acquires high-security custodian GK8 for $115 million

Crypto lending platform Celsius is acquiring a high-security custodian, announcing the purchase of Israeli-based GK8 for $115 million.

GK8 touts its platform as an all-in-one custody platform for banks, supporting hundreds of tokens in addition to some staking and decentralized finance protocols. The firm provides an air-gapped vault to mitigate cyberattacks and is so confident in its product it set a $250,000 bounty in bitcoin for anyone able to hack its cold wallet. Now, those assurances belong to Celsius.

“With the GK8 acquisition, Celsius now has the only end-to-end platform that combines a truly offline cold vault with a keyless MPC with an unlimited number of automatic co-signers,” said Celsius in a post.

The acquisition allows Celsius to provide “the all-in-one platform built for banks and financial institutions,” said the firm in its post.

Its offerings have drawn the eye of regulators in recent months. New Jersey’s Bureau of Securities ordered Celsius to halt activity in the state in September, and Texas, Alabama and Kentucky subsequently launched similar inquiries into the platform.

But growth seems to continue despite these regulatory snags. This acquisition comes just after closing a $400 million round last month led by WestCap. That brought Celsius’s valuation to $3 billion.