San Francisco-based e-commerce startup Bolt is shifting into cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) by buying fiat-to-crypto and fee infrastructure agency Wyre.

In line with a joint announcement on Thursday, Bolt has reacheda definitive settlement to accumulate Wyre, aiming to shut the deal later in 2022.

In line with a report by The Wall Road Journal, the acquisition cost Bolt $1.5 billion. Bolt didn’t immediately affirm or deny the scale of the deal to Cointelegraph.

Bolt and Wyre at the moment are planning to work collectively to create new commerce options for the mainstream, together with crypto utilization by Bolt’s world retailers, retailers, customers and builders. Bolt and Wyre anticipate to totally combine their providers earlier than the top of the yr, including Bolt’s checkout system CheckoutOS to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

With the last word purpose of enabling decentralized commerce, the collaboration goals to permit Bolt’s shoppers to pay for items with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) whereas offering retailers with the instruments to just accept crypto. The acquisition additionally goals to permit customers to buy NFTs by means of Bolt’s platform by means of Wyre’s APIs.

In line with Bolt founder and government chairman Ryan Breslow, the acquisition of Wyre has fulfilled its long-time ambition. “After I wrote the draft marketing strategy for Bolt, I had all the time imagined cryptocurrency at its heart,” he stated, including:

“That was 2015, and the concept was a slide on a pitch deck. To assume that seven years later, we would be partnering with Wyre to make that imaginative and prescient a actuality is unimaginable. This acquisition will fast-track our efforts to democratize commerce — and it’ll function a strong proof level for the union of cryptocurrency and commerce.”

Wyre co-founder and CEO Ioannis Giannaros identified that the collaboration will set a “new normal and supply new alternatives at a worldwide scale.” He added, “Merely put, we need to permit each retailer to transact simply in cryptocurrency, eradicating long-standing limitations.”

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Based in 2013, Wyre is a crypto-friendly funds agency that focuses on blockchain implementations to facilitate cross-border funds. Bolt, based in 2014 by Ryan Breslow, specialise in on-line funds by specializing in what it calls a one-click checkout service for retailers.