Kraken’s $600 million acquisition of Reap brings a Hong Kong stablecoin business payments specialist into its stack, with Payward issuing shares at a $20 billion valuation to anchor its M&A currency in its IPO.
Summary
- Kraken parent Payward will buy Hong Kong-based Reap Technologies for $600 million in cash and stock.
- The deal values Payward’s shares at $20 billion and aims to accelerate Kraken’s expansion in Asia.
- Reap integrates stablecoin-based cross-border and commercial payment infrastructure into the Kraken stack.
Kraken parent Payward Inc. has agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based Reap Technologies for $600 million in a cash-and-stock deal, marking one of the biggest bets ever by a global crypto exchange on stable payments infrastructure in Asia, according to Bloomberg. The transaction values the Payward shares issued in the transaction at a valuation of $20 billion, reaffirming the level Kraken reached in its last major funding round before preparations for the IPO began.
Reap is a financial technology company building stablecoin-enabled infrastructure for business payments, including cross-border settlement, corporate cards and expense management, with its flagship product Reap Direct integrating fiat and stablecoin rails for enterprise customers. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the company has expanded its global headquarters in the city to “exploit payment opportunities” as local regulators roll out a licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoins, positioning itself as a beneficiary of this policy shift. In a blog post on its own site, Reap claims that “stablecoins are the future of cross-border payments,” arguing that blockchain-based rails can eliminate middlemen and significantly reduce transaction costs for businesses.
Payward and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi said in the Bloomberg report that the equity portion of the deal is being issued at a valuation of $20 billion, signaling that the company wants to anchor its M&A currency at the same level as its end-2025 raise. In this $800 million funding round, Kraken told investors it would use the capital to expand into Latin America, the region Asia Pacific and EMEA, while expanding its offering “beyond cryptocurrencies to encompass additional asset classes, sophisticated trading tools, enhanced payment services and enhanced institutional capabilities,” as reported by Yahoo Finance.
The Reap acquisition comes just weeks after Kraken confirmed to CNBC that it had confidentially filed for an IPO in the United States, with recent secondary transactions involving valuations of between $13.3 billion and $20 billion depending on the investor. In a recent crypto.news article, analysts noted that Hong Kong’s decision to license fiat currency-backed stablecoins and tighten rules on virtual asset brokers aims to establish the city as a regional hub for tokenized finance, a backdrop that makes Reap’s Hong Kong base strategically valuable for Kraken’s expansion.
Kraken’s move also fits into a broader trend of exchange races to lock down stablecoin rails in Asia as companies increasingly adopt dollar-pegged tokens for trading and remittances, a trend highlighted in a previous crypto.news article on the city’s regulatory pivot and a separate article on how regional demand is reshaping on-chain liquidity. By absorbing Reap’s infrastructure and licenses, Payward is betting that controlling dollar and stablecoin payment flows to and from Asia will be as important to its future as spot trading and derivatives are today.
