Kraken to acquire Hong Kong stablecoin payments firm Reap for $600M in its first Asia infrastructure deal!

Kraken parent Payward has agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based Reap Technologies in a $600 million cash-and-stock deal, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The transaction values Payward at $20 billion and marks Kraken's first infrastructure acquisition in Asia — its third-largest deal to date.

Reap, co-founded by former Stripe Asia-Pacific lead Daren Guo and ex-investment banker Kevin Kang, provides cross-border business payments infrastructure connecting traditional finance with digital assets, with stablecoin-powered settlement at its core. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi told Bloomberg: "If you take Europe out, the fastest growing market is Asia, not just revenue but also asset-on-platform. They have already done it in Asia. They can expand into the US overnight with us."

The Reap deal follows Payward's April 17 agreement to acquire US derivatives platform Bitnomial for up to $550 million, and comes as…