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Crypto Firm Ctrl Wallet Up for Sale With Bids Due by the End of the Month

Finance

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The self-custody wallet received two M&A approaches last year which triggered a sales process for the company.

By Will Canny, Ian Allison|Edited by Stephen Alpher

Updated Jan 16, 2025, 1:30 p.m. UTCPublished Jan 16, 2025, 3:55 p.m. UTC

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What to know:

  • Ctrl Wallet is up for sale after having received two M&A approaches last year.
  • The self-custody wallet is in an auction process with bids due by Jan. 28.

Ctrl Wallet, the multi-chain self-custody wallet solution is up for sale, the company’s CEO and founder Emile Dubie told CoinDesk in an exclusive interview.

The sales process was triggered after the company received two M&A approaches late last year, Dubie said.

The wallet provider, formerly known as XDEFI, received a takeover offer from a crypto protocol and also an approach to merge with a large decentralized exchange (DEX).

The business has subsequently engaged investment bankers to organise a sales process and Ctrl Wallet is being advised by Imperii Partners, Dubie added.

An auction process is ongoing with bids due by Jan. 28., and a winning bidder is expected to be announced by Jan. 31.

Ctrl Wallet currently has 650,000 users, with a goal to get to over 2 million by the end of the year, the CEO said.

The firm’s main competitors are Coinbase Wallet, Binance’s Trust Wallet and OKX’s wallet. To be able to compete with these larger players the company needs a partner, someone who can invest in the business, Dubie said.

The company raised money in 2021 at a valuation of $60 million.

Will Canny is an experienced market reporter with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. He’s now covering the crypto beat as a finance reporter at CoinDesk. He owns more than $1,000 of SOL.

Picture of CoinDesk author Will Canny

Ian Allison is a senior reporter at CoinDesk, focused on institutional and enterprise adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to that, he covered fintech for the International Business Times in London and Newsweek online. He won the State Street Data and Innovation journalist of the year award in 2017, and was runner up the following year. He also earned CoinDesk an honourable mention in the 2020 SABEW Best in Business awards. His November 2022 FTX scoop, which brought down the exchange and its boss Sam Bankman-Fried, won a Polk award, Loeb award and New York Press Club award. Ian graduated from the University of Edinburgh. He holds ETH.

Picture of CoinDesk author Ian Allison