Nium, a Singapore- and San Francisco-based payments infrastructure company that says it moves money across more than 190 countries and issues over 41 million card tokens a year, acquired Coinbase Ventures-backed crypto card startup Cypher to build a new crypto payments product.
- But its first user-facing move, based on Cypher's latest blog post, appears to be shutting down the current platform.
Founded in 2021 by Kuberan Marimuthu, Cypher said it is joining Nium to create a new "Cypher experience" powered by Nium's global payments network, though no details were revealed.
What was revealed, though, is that the existing Cypher product is being wound down. Card loading has already been disabled. New card applications and new card issuance have ended.
- The Cypher Card will work until Aug. 7, when all active cards will be canceled.
Users can still withdraw remaining funds until Sept. 6. After that, Cypher's current mobile app, dApp and business card platform will go offline.
- The CYPR token, which was used for rewards and incentives, is also ending, with CoinGecko data showing it trading down 85% on the day, near all-time lows.
- Cypher said it reviewed ways to keep the protocol running after the acquisition with Nium, legal advisers and other stakeholders, but concluded that "maintaining the existing protocol wasn't feasible."
- Cypher raised more than $4 million in venture funding rounds prior to being acquired by Nium, backed by Y Combinator and Coinbase Ventures, per data from PitchBook.