Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Paribu has acquired Clave, a self-custody wallet startup, for an undisclosed sum. The move is designed to strengthen Paribu's self-custody offerings and provide its millions of Turkish users with easier access to decentralized finance (DeFi) tools.
Clave's Technology and Early Traction
Clave recently launched a production-ready mobile wallet that leverages passkey authentication, eliminating the need for traditional seed phrases. The firm has also contributed proposals to the Ethereum ecosystem advocating for broader passkey adoption and Layer-2 scaling solutions to improve transaction efficiency. Key features include gasless transactions, unified balance management across multiple L2 networks, account abstraction for smoother DeFi interactions, and privacy-preserving email verification using zero-knowledge proofs.
Since its public debut, Clave has rapidly gained traction, amassing over 20,000 registered users and surpassing $10 million in total assets under management, signaling strong early adoption and user trust.
Paribu's Integration Strategy
Paribu intends to integrate Clave's wallet technology into its broader ecosystem, making DeFi protocols more accessible to its customer base. The exchange has built a reputation for institutional-grade custody services and on-chain financial products tailored to Turkey's growing crypto community. Post-acquisition, Clave will continue to operate independently, with existing users retaining full control over their private keys and assets; no changes have been made to the underlying self-custody infrastructure. Paribu plans to deepen technical integration over time to further simplify blockchain asset management.
Paribu Self and Industry-Wide Developments
Paribu previously launched its own self-custody wallet, Paribu Self, which ensures users retain exclusive control of private keys and supports multi-signature approval for shared asset management by teams or families. Additional features include cross-chain transactions, consolidated monitoring dashboards, and privacy safeguards. On a broader scale, self-custody wallets are set to gain support through Mastercard's Crypto Credential program, developed in collaboration with Polygon Labs and payment platform Mercuryo — a move expected to lower the barrier for self-custody adoption.