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The biggest crypto exchange in Canada, Coinsquare, has acquired BlockEQ. The information was confirmed via the Twitter profile of the company that was bought. Coinsquare has decided to purchase the Stellar wallet, which was the first occasion ever that the Canadian blockchain company has used cash to buy out a smaller company in the blockchain space.
We are excited to announce that BlockEQ has been acquired by @Coinsquare for $12 million! https://t.co/kX77rk4Rro
— BlockEQ (@block_eq) December 6, 2018
BlockEQ is a Stellar Lumens (XLM) wallet that can be used as a decentralized network and has the option for making P2P crypto payments. It is interesting that the company has bought this wallet especially because the Canadian crypto exchange does not have the technology to offer a wallet for its clients before the sale.
At the moment, all Coinsquare customers have to rely on the custodial services of the company, but not a lot of people like this. A custodian keeps the assets for the holders and, while this may be a good idea for institutional clients who want things solved for them without any hassle, many crypto retail investors are not so keen on other companies holding their funds.
A decentralized wallet like BlockEQ would completely change this dynamic as it would let the users hold the cryptos directly and use their own private keys to secure their money.
Both services have their advantages and problems as decentralized wallets may provide for more security or less, as it depends a lot on the user. How well do you trust yourself to store your money? That’s the question here.
Coinsquare will also have the wallet brand now and all its technology, so it was a good business to acquire the technology and clients will still be able to leave their tokens at the custodial services of Coinsquare in the future.
As the company is thinking about creating and launching a stable coin soon, there is probably some relationship between this fact and the acquisition of this new company.
The Deal
BlockEQ was bought by $12 million CAD (which is about $9 million USD). At this point, we are sure that the company will retain its original employees and its name. However, the control over the development of the core products of the company is still somewhat unclear, as nobody knows if the new owner will take over the process.
Coinsquare, which is based in Toronto, has over 100,000 customers and claims that it has a volume of over $5 billion USD in cryptos yearly. The company has recently been able to raise $23.63 million USD recently and it is eyeing an Initial Public Offering (IPO), which could help in the financial overseas expansion of the company and in having more funds.
As the company has plans to become a global force in the crypto market and will start to work within the European Union until the end of the year, both the IPO and the acquisition of BlockEQ are very important pieces for the development.
Another target that Coinsquare is eyeing is Japan, one of the largest crypto markets in the world. The company intends to open a new crypto exchange there soon, which would be involved in a partnership with DLTa21, an investment bank focused on the blockchain of the country.
The CEO of Coinsquare, Cole Diamond, has affirmed that BlockEQ has one of the best tech teams in Canada and their product is very valuable, so this is why they decided to buy the company to combine both technologies and to have the opportunity to create even better products.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.