Nium Acquires Cypher, Expanding its Fiat-to-On-Chain Money Movement Infrastructure

SAN FRANCISCO, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Nium, the global leader in cross-border payments infrastructure, today announced the acquisition of Cypher, a crypto-native non-custodial wallet and issuing company. The deal further expands Nium as the core infrastructure layer for the converging payments ecosystem—the compliant money movement and value exchange infrastructure that bridges fiat and digital assets.

Since the launch of its stablecoin-backed issuing product and extending its cross-border payment network to support funding and settlement with stablecoins, Nium has attracted significant demand from consumer-facing Web3 companies as well as traditional fintechs expanding into the digital asset arena. Be it wallets, exchanges, or personal finance apps, these companies require sophisticated card issuing, global money movement infrastructure, and seamless fiat-to-digital bridges to serve users at scale.

The Cypher acquisition brings Nium deep operational knowledge of how to build and scale products for crypto-native users while navigating the unique technical requirements of the blockchain ecosystem. This expertise equips Nium to deliver products with greater speed and relevance to this emerging customer segment. Underpinning this capability is the security, compliance, and reliability architecture Nium has already embedded in its global payments infrastructure—standards that are now extended to on-chain transactions to power the next era of money movement.

Cypher, founded by Kuberan Marimuthu (Kube) and backed by Y Combinator and Coinbase Ventures, has spent the last four years building products at the intersection of on-chain and traditional banking. Kube, who also held engineering leadership roles for payments and risk at Coinbase, Amazon and Zenefits, has joined Nium as Vice President of Digital Assets, reporting to CEO Prajit Nanu. Cypher's engineering team joined Nium, as well.

"Money should move as fast as and with as much precision as data, regardless of origin or destination, be it human or machine, consumer or business, local or cross-border, wallet or bank account," said Prajit Nanu, CEO of Nium. "Today it doesn't. Payouts get stuck in the correspondent banking flows. Trillions sit idle in nostro accounts for days at a time. Agentic payments require the value exchange and trust layers that don't yet exist at the ecosystem level. We're building the critical infrastructure to drive this change, and the Cypher acquisition gives us the muscle to accelerate what we build."

The Cypher acquisition reflects Nium's core philosophy of solving the hardest problems first while prioritizing customer and ecosystem needs. Nium now brings digital assets expertise to its infrastructure layer, delivering the security, compliance, and programmability Web3 companies and the broader financial services ecosystem requires. Nium is that layer – the smart orchestration infrastructure for money movement and value exchange across fiat and digital currencies, spanning multiple networks and chains.

About Nium

Nium is building the infrastructure to move money as freely as information. Its global, compliance-first platform gives banks, fintechs, and enterprises the rails to collect, convert, send, and spend funds across currencies, borders, and blockchains. Nium's cross-border payout network spans 100 currencies and 190+ countries, more than 100 of which settle in real time, with funds disbursed to bank accounts, wallets, and cards.

As a principal card issuer on Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and UATP, Nium issues over 41 million card tokens every year. It holds regulatory licenses and authorizations in more than 40 countries, enabling compliant onboarding and rapid integration regardless of geography. The company is co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore. For more information, visit www.nium.com.