Payward, the company behind crypto exchange Kraken, is buying Reap Technologies for $600 million in cash and stock valued at $20 billion, according to an announcement Thursday.
Reap Technologies is a Hong Kong financial technology company specializing in stablecoin-powered payment rails and tools that support global business-to-business money movement.
The acquisition is Payward’s first infrastructure deal in Asia and will support new business-to-business products such as card issuance and stablecoin payments. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said Asia is the fastest-growing market outside of Europe in terms of revenue and assets on the platform, and that Reap’s capabilities could be quickly expanded to the United States.
According to Sethi, the future of finance is shaped by seamless markets, programmable money and autonomous execution, with stablecoins serving as core settlement infrastructure and AI agents playing a growing role in the ecosystem.
“Reap is the payment layer for what comes next. Card networks, banking rails and blockchains on a single API, installed in stablecoins, licensed from Hong Kong to Mexico. The infrastructure of this world must be open, regulated and operational globally from day one. The next financial product will not be assembled. It will be deployed,” he added.
Payward recently launched a B2B infrastructure platform offering stablecoin payments, trading, lending and other crypto services to fintech companies, banks, brokerages and corporations.
“Stablecoins in card payments are one of the largest real-world applications today and Reap is proud to lead the way. With the global market for stablecoins and crypto cards now exceeding $18 billion annually, Reap has nearly tripled its revenue and volumes in 2025 and expanded our licensing footprint from Asia to South America,” said Daren Guo, CEO of Reap. “The next step for us is to connect stablecoin cards and payments to a full suite of crypto-native financial services to optimize scale, regulatory reach and distribution for our customers. Joining Payward was a natural step to accelerate the future of finance and create game-changing offerings in Web3, agent commerce and more.”
After settling its regulatory battle with the US SEC, the company moved more aggressively toward expansion. Its first major transaction in this new phase was the March 2025 purchase of NinjaTrader, its largest acquisition to date.
The latest move comes shortly after Payward entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Bitnomial, the first crypto derivatives company fully licensed by the CFTC.
This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.
