Payward, the parent company of the crypto exchange Kraken, signed a definitive agreement on May 7, 2026 to acquire Reap Technologies Holdings, a Hong Kong company that issues stablecoin-funded payment cards and moves money across borders for businesses. The deal was worth up to $600 million, paid in a mix of cash and Payward stock, and valued Payward's equity at $20 billion.
Reap was to remain a standalone platform with its own brand, go-to-market approach and leadership team under co-founder and chief executive Daren Guo. At announcement the companies expected the deal to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. American Banker reported on July 2, 2026 that Payward had completed the acquisition, and a company representative told the publication that the $600 million figure included earn-outs.
Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi described Reap as the payments layer for what comes next, and The Block reported that Asia had become Payward's fastest-growing market outside Europe.
What Reap built
Daren Guo, who previously worked on Stripe's Asia-Pacific business, and Kevin Kang, a former investment banker, founded Reap in Hong Kong in 2018. Its first major product was the Reap Card, a Visa corporate card launched in November 2021 that gave businesses credit for purchases traditional business cards often did not cover.
The company later rebuilt itself around stablecoins. Reap now lets other companies issue cards funded with stablecoins and offers cross-border payouts, corporate cards, treasury management, business accounts, expense management, bill pay and fraud tools, all through a single API. Its website said it supported stablecoin card programs in more than 100 markets.
Reap had more than 200 employees at the time of the deal and held licences in Asia and South America; Sethi said it was licensed from Hong Kong to Mexico. Guo said Reap processed billions of dollars in stablecoin-funded transactions in 2025 and that its revenue and volumes nearly tripled that year.
“Stablecoins in card payments are one of the largest real world applications today and Reap is proud to be leading the way.”
Why Payward is buying
Payward launched Payward Services, a business-to-business infrastructure platform, in March 2026, and said 1,900 partners already ran on its shared infrastructure. Reap was to extend that platform into cards and payments. Reap's card issuing and cross-border payments were to be offered to those partners, while Reap would gain access to Payward's liquidity, custody and settlement, and to its licences in Europe and the US.
Sethi told Bloomberg, as quoted by Cointelegraph, that outside Europe, Asia was Payward's fastest-growing market in both revenue and assets on the platform, and that Reap could expand into the US overnight with Payward behind it.
Guo put the global stablecoin and crypto card market at more than $18 billion a year and said joining Payward would connect Reap's cards and payments to a wider range of crypto financial services, including web3 and agentic commerce.
The founders and the funding
Reap's largest disclosed round was a $40 million Series A in October 2022, made up of equity and debt. Acorn Pacific Ventures, Arcadia Funds and HashKey Capital led it. Hustle Fund, Fresco Capital and Abacus Ventures returned as investors, and Payment Asia joined as a co-investor.
At the time of that round Reap had more than 40 employees in seven countries and over 20,000 customers. Neither company disclosed how the $600 million would be split between cash and stock, or what return the earlier investors would receive.
PJT Partners and Jones Day advised Payward. CRB Securities, Goldman Sachs (Asia) and Latham & Watkins advised Reap.
A string of Payward deals
Reap was one of several acquisitions Payward made as it widened beyond crypto trading. It bought the futures broker NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025, and The Block reported that its purchase of the derivatives exchange Bitnomial, for up to $550 million, closed days before the Reap announcement. Payward also bought Backed, the issuer of xStocks, for an undisclosed price.
The Block reported that Payward confidentially filed for an initial public offering late in 2025 and reported $2.2 billion in adjusted revenue for that year.
