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Jinse Finance reported that Lloyds Banking Group, the largest retail bank in the UK, has agreed to acquire digital wallet provider Curve in a deal valued at approximately £120 million. This week, Curve informed investors that it had signed a share purchase agreement with Lloyds, with an official announcement expected as early as next week. This transaction is one of the most high-profile fintech acquisitions in the UK this year, but it comes with considerable controversy. In a shareholder circular, Curve admitted that the deal's valuation is "below our expectations for Curve," and many investors may feel disappointed. However, the board emphasized that this sale represents the "best viable option" for the company's creditors and shareholders. Curve's CEO and founder, Shachar Bialick, had previously warned that if the deal with Lloyds did not go through, the company would likely run out of funds this year. Since its founding, Curve has raised at least £250 million and was once positioned as a pioneer in European fintech. However, in 2024 and 2025, mid-sized fintech companies are generally facing rising customer acquisition costs, a tightening funding environment, and regulatory pressures, and Curve has not been immune to these challenges.

ChainCatcher News, DeFiance Capital CEO Arthur Cheong posted on X this morning, stating that the product design and market structure of crypto derivatives (especially perpetual contracts) remain the biggest structural issues facing the industry. Without improvement, it will be difficult to support the industry's move towards sustainable growth. Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy responded by saying that traditional finance has long solved these flaws, so the real problem does not lie in the design of perpetual contracts, but rather in the centralized and pseudo-decentralized exchanges that combine the roles of execution broker, central limit order book (CLOB), and custodian.