Bolt Financial Inc., a payments-focused financial technology company, is acquiring crypto-services startup Wyre Payments Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

The acquisition is valued at around $1.5 billion, according to the people. That would make it the largest merger in the crypto sector that didn’t involve a blank-check company, or so-called SPAC, according to data from research firm Dealogic. In May 2021, Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. agreed to acquire BitGo Inc. for $1.2 billion.

The deal continues what has been a record pace for mergers-and-acquisitions activity in the U.S. crypto sector since last year. In the first quarter of 2022, M&A deals totaled about $1.25 billion, according to Dealogic. That would put activity this year on pace to eclipse the record $4.9 billion of deals struck in 2021.

The cryptocurrency market exploded in 2021, driven by a surge of new investors, both retail and professional, looking for the proverbial next big thing. The total value of cryptocurrencies more than tripled last year, touching $3 trillion in November, though lately it has come down to about $2.1 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Bolt, founded in 2014 by Ryan Breslow, has been trying to carve out a niche in the online-payments space with what it calls a one-click checkout service for merchants. It has raised about $1.3 billion in venture capital, according to Crunchbase, and was valued at about $11 billion.

But Bolt and a similar competitor called Fast have been going up against entrenched competitors such as PayPal Holdings Inc. and Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay. PayPal, for instance, has millions of merchants as customers, while Bolt has hundreds. On Tuesday, Fast AF Inc. disclosed via Twitter that it was closing operations.

Both Bolt and Wyre are based in San Francisco. Wyre offers services for retail and business customers to exchange national currencies and cryptocurrencies between banks and cryptowallets, as well as trading cryptocurrencies. It has money-transmitter licenses in 27 U.S. states.

Write to Paul Vigna at paul.vigna@wsj.com